


One Shot

by iswyn, plumadesatada



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Western, Betrayal, Loki Needs a Hug, M/M, Rated For Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-26
Updated: 2016-11-26
Packaged: 2018-09-02 05:40:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 27,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8652985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iswyn/pseuds/iswyn, https://archiveofourown.org/users/plumadesatada/pseuds/plumadesatada
Summary: When Tony finds himself stranded in the middle of the Nevada desert after a train job gone sour, coming across some rich easterner with a fancy horse is a sorely needed stroke of luck. Both of them are going to San Francisco and, since ‘William' is rolling in dough and in need of protection, he decides to hire Tony, dirt poor but a dead shot, to escort him home. When Tony finds out that a railroad tycoon back in Frisco has put a price on his travelling companion’s head, he’s got a choice to make: keep his promise, or get paid twice for the same job. (Western AU)





	1. Someone to Ride the River With

**Author's Note:**

> Well. Fucking finally. This fic has been in the works for nearly a year and a half now. There will be a lot of weird old west lingo; the weirder have definitions, you just need to hover your mouse over the words. If nothing happens, try [looking it up here](http://www.legendsofamerica.com/we-slang.html). For more details on the character's backstories, what the horses and guns look like or links we used for research, turn to the end-of-work notes.
> 
> As part of the Frostiron Bang 2016, this fic has accompanying music. [You can find it here](http://8tracks.com/wrecked-anon/someone-to-ride-the-river-with). You'll probably need Hola Unblocker to listen to some.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **someone to ride the river with:** a person to be counted on; reliable; got it where it counts.

Demons have innocent brown eyes, Tony realizes as he lies on his back. Beautiful warm brown eyes that stare down into your soul and make you want to beg forgiveness for unnamed crimes and change your wicked ways.

Oh, how his back hurts.

It’s too late for Tony to change his wicked ways, though, so he just has to pull himself up by his bootstraps and try again. Also, his crimes aren’t exactly unnamed. See: the lovely brown eyes of the palomino he’s currently trying to steal. He wishes he had a carrot or an apple or something so he could distract the darned horse into not throwing him again.

He sits up, and his back hurts a little more. It’s not the horse’s fault, really, though getting  dusted  probably didn't help. It’s a pulled muscle from the day before. A pained groan forces itself from his throat; a second later, he hears the distinctive click of a gun being cocked.

He grits his teeth.

It shouldn’t surprise him. It’s just the latest in a long, long line of bad luck. The job going sideways, the gang getting split up, his bay getting shot out from under him, and now the ultimate indignity: he’s going to be shot by some dude who caught him trying to steal his demonic horse.

“Hold it right there, thief,” says a voice still thick with sleep. “Get away from my horse.”

“Your horse?” Tony asks, pasting a grin across his face. “Oh, dang. Thought it was my horse. Sure she’s around here somewhere.”

“There’s nothing around here,” the man responds, faster than before and starting to sound more wrathy than groggy.

Still, the fella is talking, and Tony can work with that.

“Well, that’s just not true, my friend,” he says, turning his head to grin at him. “I mean, I’m here. You’re here. This horse is here. Are you sure it’s your horse?”

“My father bought me that horse as a filly. I know my own horse.” The man tosses his blanket aside and sits up fully. The nose of the gun is wavering slightly and, while that could be a product of his other movements or of exhaustion, Tony suspects it’s from an arm not used to the weight.

Then he notices that the man's not wearing any boots.

In the middle of the Nevada desert, you don’t take off your boots to sleep. It’s a good way to wake up with a snake in one of them. It’s also darned hard to chase a horse thief when you aren’t wearing your boots.

For a moment, Tony considers it. He snuck into the man’s camp, such as it is, for the express purpose of stealing his horse while he slept. He needs the horse. Mostly, he needs to not be stuck in the middle of the Nevada desert without a horse. He’s pretty sure the fella couldn’t hit him with that wavering gun arm, and he’s not going anywhere anytime soon with his boots three feet away.

On the other hand, Tony thought he was stealing from a man. The person before him only technically qualifies as such. He’s really more a boy. Thin and pale, the kid looks almost frail compared to the harsh surroundings. His clothes are fancy, but they’ve obviously seen better days. There are dark circles under his eyes that speak of too long without proper sleep. Even more than that, there’s a haunted look in those eyes. Hunted. Scared.

Tony is stealing a horse from a scared kid who doesn’t even know to wear his boots to sleep. That’s practically outright murder.

While he considers all of this, the kid is growing impatient. He scowls and glares, and it reminds Tony of a cat arching its back and hissing to scare off a bear. If that cat had a gun.

 _Heck_ , he thinks to himself. At least the kid’s got some balls, even if he is completely out of his mind.

“Okay,” Tony agrees. “Not my horse.”

The kid seems surprised by the admission, but then his eyes narrow. “And?”

Tony gives his best roguish grin once again and tries for charming. “And I’m sorry.”

“You’re… sorry.” The gun wavers even more; it’s got to be killing the kid to keep holding it up like that, but he’s trying his darnest. Against his will, Tony is impressed. “You’re sorry you were trying to steal my horse and abandon me here in the middle of the desert?”

Tony cocks his head to the side, as though thinking it over. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m sorry about that. It was a great plan, don’t get me wrong, but I’ve revised it.”

The kid raises his other hand to firm his grip on the gun. “Oh? And what are you planning now?”

“I’ve gotta tell you, kid, it goes against my better judgment, but I’m gonna help you.” Tony grabs his hat from where it had hit the ground next to him and puts it back on his head. Then, as nonchalantly as possible while keeping an eye on the kid and his gun, he stands and dusts himself off. “First, you’re gonna put the gun away and get your boots on. Then we’re gonna get moving.”

“You. Are going to help me.” The kid’s flat tone is pretty well done, but Tony thinks he can hear the tremble of an emotion somewhere in it. Fear? Anger? Hope? “And with what, precisely, are you going to help me?”

Tony uses his knuckles to push his hat back and widens the grin. “First thing, I’m gonna help you check your boots for rattlers.”

That gets exactly the response he had been hoping for.

The gun is almost forgotten as the kid whips around and stares as his boots as though they _are_ rattlesnakes. Tony uses that opening to take two quick steps and snatch it out of his hand—it’s not that he’s still going to take the horse, he just doesn’t want some green kid pointing a gun in his direction, especially if he’s not paying attention to where he’s aiming.

It takes Tony a second to really look at what he has in his hands. He ignores the kid’s outraged exclamation, because really… “What in blazes is this?”

“What do you mean ‘what in blazes is this’? It is my gun!” While the words imply offense, the boy’s tone seems somehow satisfied with Tony’s disgust.

"Button, this ain't a gun, it’s a toy.” Tony rolls his eyes and waves the offending object. “A Webley with a gosh-darned mother-of-pearl grip? It's a fashion accessory!”

The kid smirks. “Just because I have to carry a gun doesn’t mean it has to be ugly, does it?”

Given his quick answers, the kid has obviously had the argument before, with someone else, probably many times and, since he still has the ridiculous thing, he must have won.

This isn’t a fight Tony wants to have. “Whatever, nancy-boy,” he answers, turning the gun grip out to hand it back. “Your life, your gun. If you wanna do something other than play with it, though, you might want a real weapon.”

The kid arches a brow and looks down his nose at Tony as he takes the proffered gun. "And what, pray tell, constitutes a 'real weapon', in your expert opinion?" he drawls.

Tony finds his upper lip curling in a sneer at the snotty tone. Kid comes from money and thinks he knows everything. Probably hasn't worked a day in his life. Probably hasn't even actually shot with that gun. Or any gun.

Well.

He draws his Peacemaker from its worn but well cared for holster and makes it spin around one finger before holding it firmly. "This iron here has gotten me out of more trouble than I can say. Never jams. Never misses." He would have shot something to prove it, except there was nothing for miles except dirt and brush. Not to speak of the waste of precious ammunition.

The kid extends his hand towards him, palm up, obviously expecting him to put his gun there so he can examine it. By gum, he might actually be stupid enough to look down the barrel.

Tony holsters it pointedly. "We'll get you a proper pistol when we reach a town." Not that he'll teach the kid how to use it; he plans to be gone as soon as he finds himself a horse. But until then... "The name's Tony." No surnames. Surnames can get him killed. "You?"

After too long a beat, the kid answers, "William."

He isn't fooling anyone, but Tony lets it pass. He really needs that ride. "Come on then, Bill," he grins, squinting at the light from the rising sun, "let's get your boots and ride on."

 

* * *

 

After seeing the gun, Tony was half dreading that the palomino would be just as decorative and useless. He's been pleasantly surprised. 

She doesn't complain too much about having to carry two men. Some squealing when she has to take them up a slope, which Bill soothes with soft neck pats and a whispered "I know, I know", and they have to stop frequently to let her rest, but all in all they make good time.

That's the good part of the journey. The bad part is everything else: the sun baking their backs even as their hands freeze. The blinding sunlight. The wind that throws dirt in his eyes. Sitting this close together with another man on a moving horse. Not being the one driving the horse. The silence that stretches on like the desert itself.

Earlier, Tony tried to fill the silence, but Bill was in no mood to talk. There's only so many noncommittal grunts a person can take before they, too, stop talking. So now he's bored out of his mind, thirsty and hungry, lulled to half-dozing by the horse's swaying gait, acutely aware of the stranger sitting in front of him... and this has been going on for hours.

His belly rumbles.

"You wouldn't happen to have any hardtack on ya, would ya?" he asks. If this won't get them talking, at least it'll fill his belly.

Bill remains silent for a while. Then he says, "Left saddlebag."

"Much obliged." Tony digs through it and comes up with a square and a half. He raises his eyebrows. "This all of it?"

"Oh, like you have much to offer?" Bill drawls back.

Tony feels his face warming. "I wasn't exactly planning on a trip through the desert, yanno?" He slips a piece into his mouth and holds it there, waiting for his spit to soften it. "Bu' you we'e," he says around the hardtack. "Sho you hav' no excus'."

"Must you?" Bill replies tiredly, not even bothering to look at him over his shoulder.

"Oh-ho, well, excuuuse me, I didn' know I was in su' polaih company." He chews loudly before swallowing. "So, what's your story, milady?"

Bill doesn't answer. He just takes a deep breath and exhales. Like Tony isn't worth his time, even though he's the only halfway interesting thing for miles.

Tony pats Bill's leg from behind. "Come on, Billy, talk to me." His hand gets brushed off like so much dust.

Really.

Biting his bottom lip, he stares at the mountains in the horizon and wonders yet again how the devil he keeps getting himself into these situations.

 

* * *

 

When they finally reach a town, Tony is ready to dance from joy just from the thought of not having Bill's tense presence plastered to his front.

The place is almost a ghost town, abandoned after the railway companies built tracks further north and everyone moved, but there is a working pump and, more importantly, a saloon. Dangit, but Tony could use a drink. And a meal, if they've got any.

First thing, they water the horse — Hurricane, as it turns out. She’s the one who worked hardest, so she gets the most consideration. Bill, moving as though he's in pain, pulls a brush out of the saddlebags and brushes her down while quietly talking to her.

Tony wasn't expecting someone who thinks that guns should be pretty to actually give a fig over his mount. He’s beginning to wonder if the palomino is the kid’s only friend. Poor sod.

Anyway, he's hungry.  And they're beginning to attract a crowd, such as it is.

"Heya, Billy, I'm gonna hit the saloon," he announces, waiting for some form of acknowledgement. Bill gives him one look over the horse's shoulder and returns to the brushing. Shrugging, he heads for the saloon, his mouth already watering.

The inside of the saloon is surprisingly clean. Most of the tables are already full, and a bunch of heads turn towards Tony as he enters. He removes his hat respectfully and makes for the bar, where he stops short.

The barmaid has the sweetest smile he's seen in a long while, all dimples and red lips. Her skin is the kind of creamy white that blushes easily, and her bosom is nearly spilling from her low-cut dress. Dark brown hair, almost black in the shadowed interior of the saloon, is held up in a bun that manages to be neat and messy at the same time. And she's talking animatedly with an old man as she polishes a glass to gleaming.

Tony is in love.

He approaches the bar, hat in hand, and sits on a stool. He waits for her to look towards him, content in watching her.

Finally, she turns her blinding smile on him. "Hi there, sugar," she says, and her voice is not deep and sultry, but it suits her. Her beauty is unfeigned. "What can I do for you?"

Tony matches her grin. "I'm looking for a meal. Hot, if you've got it, but even just bread and cheese will do." He sets his hat down on the counter next to him and leans his elbows onto the bar.

“We got some stew that should do you,” she says with a nod to a boy sitting near the back door, then she pulls out a glass and gives him a questioning look. “A drink?”

Widening his grin so much that he’s half afraid he’s going to crack his dry lips, he nods. “Sounds good. Beer?”

She nods, briefly looking up at the door when it opens and closes to admit Bill behind him, and then chuckles. “As long as you’re not some fancy city boy who expects his beer cold.”

Tony can’t help it, he laughs out loud at that image. “Cold beer? Haven’t had one of those since it stopped snowing in January.”

Bill’s footsteps behind him paused at the barmaid’s words, and when they come again, they sound harder, like a child who’s been told it’s bedtime. Tony supposes that they girl was looking at Bill’s clothes when she made the remark, so he’s taken offense. Kid’s got no idea how to handle a gentle joshing, he supposes.

She sets a mug down in front of Tony, then heads out from behind the bar, to where Bill has apparently sat himself down at a table. _Fancy,_ Tony thinks to himself wryly.

He listens to her take Bill’s order, the same as his, since it’s not like a tiny place like this has a lot of choices. Unless the kid wants to drink the kind of awful rotgut they have in tiny towns like this one, it’s stew and beer. Either way, if he’s half as fancy as he looks, he ain't gonna like it.

The barmaid comes back to draw Bill’s drink, and he takes the opportunity to ask what he meant to when he came in. “Where’s a guy stay the night around here?”

She gives him a flirtatious once over, and answers with a wink, “Well, since my husband's in town, I guess down at the Miller’s boarding house.”

The two of them laugh, the sound punctuated by a sigh from behind him. He rolls his eyes and, winking back at the barmaid, stands and heads over to join Bill at the table.

Bill, apparently, doesn't want to be joined. He gives Tony one long, unreadable stare when he plops down next to him.

Tony grins at him, all charm. Gee. With manners like these, kid's not gonna last long around here. Maybe that's why he was out in the desert in the first place.

The barmaid brings them their food after a few minutes, and Bill eats in silence, only pausing to throw Tony a look every now and then. Tony usually thinks he’s pretty good at reading people, but Bill doesn’t quite fit into Tony’s experience. Young, arrogant, and brash, all that makes sense. But most kids like that are constantly running their mouths off. Not too many reasons an arrogant kid would be so tight-lipped.

Yeah, Bill’s in trouble. No two ways about it.

After eating, Tony has to reach deep into his pockets to find the money to pay for his dinner. There’s a reason they were doing the job, after all. He’s barely got more than two nickels to rub together. Bill, on the other hand, reaches into a pocket and pulls out a wad of cash.

Jesus wept. Is the kid off his nut?

Tony's hand shoots out lightning-fast. He grabs the kid's wrist and shoves it under the table. Not too many people are around to see, but you never know how people will react to seeing a roll like that. He puts a hand on Bill’s shoulder and whispers, “Put the cash away, kid. You don’t wanna go flashing your whole bankroll around a town like this.”

Bill jerks away from him and scowls before peeling a note off the roll —under the table this time— and setting it down. “I assure you, I am more than capable of taking care of myself.”

“Hey, no harm meant. Just trying to help out there, Billy.” Tony puts his hands up in supplication, backing off a step. “You wanna head down to the boarding house and see if they’ve got a room?”

“I do not think I require your help for that,” Bill sneers at him, standing and pushing his chair back. “I got you into a town, and I see no reason why you and I should not part ways here.”

Tony isn’t surprised, really, but he is oddly bereft. He wasn’t looking forward to getting ignored for another day, but he figured he’d wear the kid down with the old Stark charm, and get him to talk, at least a little. Tony does like a challenge.

“If that’s the way you feel, Bill, I guess so,” he nods to the kid, and steps aside to let him walk out. “Thanks for the ride, anyway.”

Bill gives him a short nod and continues walking, not even turning to look at Tony again.

Shrugging, he picks up the money Bill left on the table and does some quick calculations in his head. Guess he doesn’t have to worry about paying for dinner, since Bill put down enough for both of them. In fact, he’s pretty sure he’s going to come away with change.

 

He flirts with the barmaid over another beer and he still has some change afterwards. He could buy another one, but he's already the last patron in the saloon and he's quite short on coins, so he gathers his change and puts his hat back on, tipping it to the delightful barmaid as he walks out the door, “Ma’am.”

Her giggle follows him out into the darkened street. He may not be able to charm Bill, but it's no fault of his own. The kid is just sour inside.

He follows her earlier directions, heading down the lane toward the local boarding house. He whistles with good cheer, even though it's long past sundown.

As he’s passing the space between a building of some sort —it's too dark to see, but he thinks it's a post office— and the boarding house, he hears a scuffle.

Tony likes to say that his momma didn’t raise no fool but, as it's sometimes pointed out to him, he doesn’t always act like it. Instead of continuing to whistle his jaunty tune and walking on, he turns to look down the alley. He can’t really see much, but he’s pretty sure a beam of moonlight momentarily laid on an all-too-familiar piece of mother-of-pearl.

Dammit.

Sighing, he turns down the alley and prepares to make a nuisance of himself. It is, after all, his most finely honed skill. He may make liberal use of the old Stark charm, but it can be just as easily used for evil.

When his eyes focus in the dark, it’s not at all hard to see the two men quietly fighting. One of them is tall, dressed in a long coat and obviously Bill. The other one, if Tony is not mistaken, is one of the older men who had been in the back of the saloon. He must have seen the bankroll, despite Tony’s attempt to cover it up.

He is also is quickly getting the better of Bill.

The kid is surprisingly not bad in a fight, even with (maybe especially with) his gun lying on the ground ten feet away, but it's obvious that he doesn’t get into fights for his life on the regular. He doesn’t fight near dirty enough for that. The other man throws a handful of dirt in his eyes, and Bill looks not just pained or blinded, but utterly shocked at the tactic. Tony’s pretty sure he hears the word ‘blackguard’ among a string of mostly incomprehensible —and stunningly blasphemous— cursing.

And then he sees a flash of moonlight, reflected off the blade of a knife.

All right. Tony has to intervene.

He whips his poncho out of the way and draws his Peacemaker. "Looks like someone wants lead for dessert," he says in his this-is-a-hold-up voice, the one sounds as calm as a rattler about to strike.

Both men freeze, and Tony picks that moment to cock the hammer, knowing the noise will carry in the sudden silence.

"Leave the chickabiddy be, will ya?" he asks pleasantly, gesturing the man away with his gun.

The man raises his hands and takes a step back. 

Tony grins, even though they can't see it. If only the train job had gone this easily... "Now, you look like a reasonable fella. Whaddaya say you leave the kid alone, and we don't rat you out to the sheriff?"

"What?" Bill squawks indignantly. He points to his assailant. "You think I would just let him walk away?"

"Don't mind him, he doesn't know what he's sayin'." Tony walks closer and puts a restraining hand on Bill's shoulder. "We're all friends here, right?"

The black shape that is the man's head shifts from Tony to Bill. "Right," he says after a moment. "I'm leaving." He walks backwards a couple steps, not turning his back on them, and then disappears into the night.

Bill shakes off Tony's hand. "I was handling that," he spits. Like Tony spurned his honor by intervening, instead of sparing him from death by exsanguination or, at the very least, becoming destitute.

Tony holsters his gun. "No, you weren't." If he’s gonna die, he could have the decency to do it where Tony can take his money afterwards. The kid needs to get rid of his ridiculous notion of the fairness of the world. He wonders if he was ever this proud and young and stupid.

Yeah, he was, or he would never have joined the army all those years ago.

Bill is silent. He merely walks around Tony without a word of gratitude and goes towards the boarding house. Except he stops and says, "You act so sure that you could do better." Derision drips from his words.

 _Anyone would be hard-pressed to do worse_ , Tony thinks. But the same part of him that does the planning before each train job takes over and says, "For a price, sure."

It makes sense. The kid needs protection —God only knows what sort of trouble he could get into, or what trouble is pursuing him—, and Tony needs a ride to some place where he can buy a horse that isn't buzzard bait, and money to buy it with.

"Very well," Bill says after considering. "If you think you can do better."

Perfect. "Oh, trust me, I can."

 

* * *

 

To no one’s surprise, the morning brings a new argument.

“Absolutely not,” Bill says, shaking his head. His tone is full of finality, as though Tony gets no say whatsoever in what they do next.

Tony grits his teeth and tries not to make it obvious that the kid is already getting on his last dratted nerve. That’s no way to get where he’s going and get paid. He’s got to get to Sacramento and then San Francisco as soon as he can. He’d thought it was a godsend when Bill told him needed to go there too but, as it turned out, that isn’t helping much.

The kid seems determined to slow them down.

“We needta get somewhere we can buy a horse,” Tony says slowly, enunciating each word. “I know north isn’t toward San Francisco, Billy-boy, but we need to find a town where someone might be willing to part with a halfway decent horse, and for _that_ we need to get closer to where the railroad runs.”

Bill just looks down his nose at Tony and shakes his head.

That’s when something occurs to Tony.

Bill’s a spoiled kid, sure. It’s obvious enough that he doesn’t know a lot of things, especially about travel here in the West. He’s proven stubborn and rude sometimes, even to his own detriment. But he’s not stupid. Complete greenhorn, yes, but not _stupid_.

Tony knows he makes sense. He knows Bill recognizes it. So it follows that there’s got to be another reason he doesn’t want to head toward the nearest railroad town. Tony thinks of his own concerns about riding through a railroad town, and takes a long look at Bill.

The tight set of his mouth. The bags under this eyes. The fancy yet dirty and frayed suit and coat. This isn't a man who is down at heels, despite appearances, yet he travels by horse, sleeps on dirt, eats the same watery grub as any cowboy, and looks like he's been rode hard and put up wet.

Definitely a man who's running from something.

“We could stop on the outskirts,” he offers after a while. “Make camp. Then I could go in and buy what we needed.” He doesn't _want_ to, either, but needs must when the devil drives.

They’re both quiet for a long moment, each likely aware of what the other is thinking. Finally, Bill nods. “That sounds acceptable.”

Giving him a slow grin, Tony nods. “Sounds good, Bill. I think we just might be able to learn to understand each other.”

Bill rolls his eyes and snorts. “I am quite certain we could, if you chose to speak English.”

It’s strange, given the less-than-polite words, but Tony gets the feeling that for the first time, he and Bill are on the same page. He laughs. “Well Jesum Crow, whatdja ‘spect from the son of a mudsill pike? Not all of us can shin ballast from our da to learn three languages at some fancy school back East."

Bill squints, mouth gaping slightly as if he got stuck in the middle of mouthing _what?_ Finally he blinks. "I studied law, not languages." He says it hesitantly. It's probably the only bit of Tony's words he understood.

Tony feels like laughing —if only Billy-boy knew— but bites his cheek. No dissing the kid when he finally opens up. "Bully for you. Now let's fetch Hurricane and cut a path outta here."


	2. See How the Cat Jumps

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **see how the cat jumps:** to discover the secrets or designs of others

Since Tony is expecting another day like the first, he’s shocked when Bill opens his mouth after a while on the trail.

“What is it you do for a living, Mr… Tony?” he asks hesitantly, sounding uncertain about whether he’ll get an answer.

Tony chuckles. He’s never afraid to talk, even when he probably should be. “Oh, you know how it is in the West. You do whatever makes you a buck. Play a hand or two of Faro, protect a big time lawyer from back East.”

From his position behind Bill, he could see the man’s nose scrunch up in either confusion or disgust. “Is that all? Surely you have to have had steady work at some point in your life?”

“Sure,” Tony laughs. “Misspent youth in the Army. You know how it is, you gotta rebel against daddy sometime. I went and found myself respectable work. My poor daddy is probably still havin’ nightmares about it.”

“Because you chose to serve your country?” Bill asks, obviously confused now. “My father would have been pleased if I had made such a decision.”

Raising a brow that he knows Bill can’t see, Tony tries to put all of his disbelief in his voice. “Would he? Most fathers might be proud of a thing like that, but I don’t reckon that’s the same thing as pleased.”

Bill seems to think about that for a moment, but then he shakes his head. “No, he would have been pleased. He always said I didn’t appreciate my situation as much as I should, and that I have never had to work for anything in my life. He would have been pleased.”

Tony finds himself making a face at that. What the hell kind of father did Bill have? “Well no offense to the dearly departed, but my daddy always said that if a man wants his son to earn his own way, that’s on him, not his son. He wanted you to earn something? He shouldn’t have given it to ya.”

Bill half turned to him and gave a wry smile before answering. “You will forgive me if, while thinking something similar, I failed to say so to him.”

For the first time, Tony is pretty sure that he and Bill are gonna be alright. While that would normally get him to asking questions, he decides that the path they’re on is working, so he’s not going to upset it. Bill will talk to him in his own time. He doesn’t seem like a bad kid, just a little slow to warm up.

Tony of all people can understand being slow to trust.

 

* * *

 

It takes less time than expected to reach the outskirts of the Grindtail. For a railroad town, it’s a small one, which is good: the last thing he needs is a place big enough that he'll get recognized. Bad enough that Bill is unmistakeable for anyone else.

Sometimes, Tony’s happy that he’s not tall, or blonde, or anything that stands out in a crowd. A girl once told him that he had pretty eyes, but he’s almost certain that the local law isn’t gonna put that on a wanted poster.

He and Bill set up camp about a mile outside of Gindtail, on a right angle from the tracks. It seems that Bill is even more skittish about the rails than Tony, which is saying something.

And if Laufey’s people caught any of the gang, well… Best not to think on that.

When Tony has shown the kid all of the basics of what _not_ to do, the camp gets quiet for a bit. It’s painfully awkward, but he's determined to let Bill make the next move, since it’s his money going into town, even if it’s going with Tony.

Maybe _especially_ because it's going with Tony.

It doesn’t take too long. Bill gives Tony a searching look, probably trying to decide if he’s gonna take his money and run.

Tony could tell him that, if he were that type, he’d have killed him and taken the money. And Hurricane, since she’s a pretty fine piece of horseflesh. He doesn’t figure that would make Bill feel better, though.

Bill pulls his money out, and it seems he’s learned at least a little from the night before, since it’s less than half what Tony knows he has. He counts some bills out and looks to Tony questioningly. “Will that be enough to buy a decent horse, enough food for our journey, and anything else we might need?”

Tony considers the money, the size of the town, and his own negotiation skills. “Ought to be plenty. You want me to get a good horse?”

Bill looks like he thinks it’s a stupid question.

Tony grins. “Your money, Billy. I’m not takin’ it for granted.”

“Buy the best horse they have. So buy a mediocre horse,” Bill says dryly, and it makes Tony laugh out loud. “Also, as much food as you think we should carry. I want to get to San Francisco as soon as possible, and I do not wish to stop in many towns.”

“Aright,” Tony agrees. He can get behind the avoiding-civilization thing.  “Good horse, food, maybe an extra canteen." He sucks on his teeth. "I prob'ly should get you a gun that’s gonna work reliably, too, you know.”

It’s hard to tell in the bright Nevada sunlight, but Tony is pretty sure that Bill blushes. “Marksmanship is not exactly my specialty. I doubt a different gun will change that.”

Which goes to show how little he knows.

“Hell, Bill, you shoulda said before!” Tony throws an arm around the other man’s shoulder. “Cause I’m a fair hand at teaching a body to shoot.” Especially once the kid gets a gun that'll actually shoot where you point it.

It takes a moment for Bill to parse what he’s said. “You want to teach me how to shoot a gun?”

"I don't see why not." Tony shrugs. “You never know when you’re gonna need to shoot somebody. Best to be able to do it, just in case.” He slaps Bill on the back and pulls away. "So yeah. New gun."

“If you think I require a different gun, I suppose I must trust you on that.” Bill says slowly, as though the words go against his own judgment. He pulls his gun out; the mother-of-pearl handle glimmers in the sunlight.

It really is a stunningly pretty piece of shit.

"My mother gave me this," Bill murmurs, "when I left for Harvard. I would not take any that Father wanted for me." He holds it by the barrel and offers it to Tony like he's offering his arm to be cut off at the elbow. "Dispose of it as you will."

That is... cold. And unnecessary. Tony has no idea what this kid is running from, but to throw away a piece of his heart because it's inconvenient? He'd be the first to say that the West is no place for sentimentality, but this is just stupid. What the devil is this kid trying to prove?

Shit. Tony isn't gonna get paid enough to deal with this bullshit. "Keep it, Billy. It's probably the only pretty thing we'll see for a while."

 

Tony finds an excellent mediocre horse. Calico and slightly fat, and just in the middle between being too young to handle easily and too old to work long. He names her Peach and buys her a saddle and matching bags in a pattern similar to her coat, though mainly he buys them because they’re the cheapest ones that are actually serviceable. Happy coincidence.

Whistling to the tune of the song he and Rhodey used to sing when they were stuck with graveyard watch, he walks towards the general store. He ties Peach's reins right outside and walks in, mentally running through everything he needs to buy.

Bacon, beans, maybe other airtights. Coffee, certainly; if they want to get to Frisco as soon as possible, they need to be able to travel long. A flask to replace the one he lost along with his dearly departed horse, and enough gin to fill it with. Two shirts, two undershirts, six pairs of socks and two sets of drawers to split between him and Bill. Some oil for the lamp.

The clerk stares at him as he hand over the money. Lad's probably never seen so many bills at once. Tony doesn't like being so conspicuous, but Billy hadn't had any coins on him.

There are two men just outside talking in hushed voices when he comes to pack his haul into his brand new used saddlebags. He could be quick about it, but then he hears the magic word:

"Didja ever learn what Laufey wants with him?" asks one of them around a quid of tobacco. He's shabbily dressed, with pants that have been mended too many times and a jacket that is shiny with use at the elbows.

The other man, the one with spectacles, shrugs. "I'm not paying you to ask questions." He seems well-to-do, coat spotless and custom-cut. His hair is slicked back with care, and he has the pale skin of someone who doesn't work in the sun. Probably a banker, if Tony's any judge (and he is). "Just find the kid."

The lickspittle spits on the dirt next to the banker's impeccable shoes. His teeth are stained yellow when he grins at his companion's disgusted shudder. "Would be easier if you could deign yourself to give me a description better than 'tall, rich, dark-haired'."

Tony arches an eyebrow. _Well. That sounds like someone I know._ Now he's peskily interested in this conversation. He pretends to be struggling with the bag's buckle.

"I don't know him personally, man." The banker looks annoyed now. "He's one of _those_ Aistroms. You'll be able to tell, I expect."

Aistrom? As in the Aistrom Railroad Co.? As in the only railroad out of San Francisco other than Laufey's? As in the family that had died in a fire?

 _Huh_. No wonder Laufey's interested. All he needs to do to have the monopoly on railroads is get the only remaining Aistrom to sign the company over. The only remaining Aistrom who, if Tony is not mistaken, is currently waiting for him to get back with canned beans and a gun.

And all Tony needs to do to get himself and his entire gang out of hot water with Laufey is hand over William, or whatever his name is, before anyone else gets the chance to. Bill is paying him to help him get to San Francisco in one piece, and no one said anything about later. Laufey is apparently willing to pay anyone who gets Bill to him in San Francisco, and Tony might just need a little credit with Laufey if things with the job went as bad as he thinks they did and he needs to buy someone’s freedom.

He can't remember the last time he got paid twice for the same job.

Poor Bill. What a bad lot in life, to be exactly what Tony needs to solve all his problems. He's gonna hate the way Billy's gonna look at him when he finds out. But the West is no place for sentimentality, especially for a dude he met three days ago. He likes Bill, but he likes himself a lot more.

This shitty week is finally looking up.

Tony finishes buckling the saddlebags, hops on Peach, gives the good fellas a nod goodbye, and rides off.

 

Bill is pacing when Tony gets back to camp.

Tony wonders for a moment if Bill somehow knows that he's planning, but dismisses it. Bill isn't some sort of witch that can see into his head; kid's just paranoid. And rightly so, considering what Tony knows of Laufey and what he, personally, is planning on doing the second they reach Frisco.

"Anything interesting happen while I was gone?" he asks before even dismounting.

Bill jumps a foot in the air and spins around like a spooked cat, hand flying to the holster at his waist. When his wild eyes land on Tony, he relaxes. "No."

Trying not to grin, Tony jumps off Peach and walks over to him. "Got you a present," he says, pushing a hat into Bill's chest. "Try it on."

Silent, Bill looks down at it and, after a heartbeat, puts it on. It was black, once, but the color has faded to a dusty gray. It looks good on him. And, more importantly, it casts a nice shadow on his face.

Tony nods approvingly. "Pretty. If you cut your hair—"

"No," Bill says quickly.

"—you'll be unrecognizable. You sure?" He arches an eyebrow at his companion.

Instead of answering, Bill turns towards Tony's new horse. "This was the best horse you could find?"

Tony glares at him. Fine, so no horse can be as fine as his late Bandido, God keep him, but Peach is an excellent mare. He pats her flank. "Forgive the mush-head, peachy-keen, he has no idea what's he's talking about."

Bill gives him a sidelong glance and opens —hey!— Tony's saddlebags. He rummages around, humming approvingly at the provisions and the new canteens, which Tony filled before coming back. He frowns at the amount of new clothes. "What's this for, then?" he asks, holding up a wrinkled shirt.

"That's for you." Tony explains his reasoning; in short, that Bill's fancy clothes are too easily recognizable and dressing like a normal person might help him blend in. "I mean, silk? Who in blazes wears their best bib and tucker for a romp in the desert?"

Far from denying he needs to hide at all, Bill nods. "Good thinking." He pulls out everything Tony's bought and starts checking what matches, this undershirt with that shirt, that shirt with the blue jeans.

Tony looks on in amusement. City folk are hilarious. It's not like there's much to match here, considering Tony got everything at the general store, but if Bill wants to amuse himself this way, who is he to stop him?

"Turn around," Bill says, waking Tony from his musings. He's holding a bunch of clothes and watching him expectantly.

Shy, of course. City folk. Rolling his eyes, Tony grabs an apple from his saddlebag and goes to sit by the fire.

Bill, when he joins him, looks a lot less like an Easterner who fell off the train in the middle of the desert and more like a ranch owner. Not perfect, but it will do. Even his long coat, which looked fancy when he was still wearing his Eastern fashion, is now dusty enough to pass muster. The green shirt brings out his eyes.

"Got you a real gun, by the bye," Tony says. "Did you find it?"

"Yes," Bill nods. "And the bullets."

And the stash of apples, apparently, because he bites into one.

 

* * *

 

Travelling becomes a lot less awkward, when Tony doesn’t have to ride behind Bill. He doesn’t mind being close to another body, but letting someone else control the horse he’s on is an uncomfortable experience any day.

It’s still a quiet ride, which continues to make Tony dang uncomfortable. It’s one thing to ride quietly if he’s alone, and he still usually fails to do that —which is why he has such strong bonds with his horses—, but riding in silence when he has a companion is almost impossible. He keeps opening his mouth to start talking, and then remembering who he’s with and shutting it again.

Finally, mid-morning, it seems that Bill is tired of it. “If you have something to say, you should just say it and be done.”

“See, now that’s the problem, Bill my boy,” Tony grins. “I don’t wanna say something specific. I just get bored. And lonely. And you know, something’s wrong if you’re with someone and feeling lonely at the same time.”

“I cannot imagine how you could possibly feel lonely. You are more than enough company for any ten men.” Bill snarks right back at him.

Well hell. If that’s the best way to have a conversation with the other man, Tony’s okay with that.

“Does that make you eleven men?” Tony asks. “Cause I keep getting the feeling that I’m not enough company for you.”

Bill snorts. “Is that some comment about my arrogance? Because I have had quite enough ruffians inform me that I look like I believe that something smells bad. Usually, any such scent could be traced to them.”

Tony can’t stop the laugh that bubbles up from his chest. “So you’re saying that you wander around with your nose in the air?”

“I do not know what you mean,” Bill says, sticking his nose in the air, smiling slightly. Tony’s pretty sure he's doing it on purpose. “But at least you smell less bad than any of the others.”

Tony shakes his head in amusement. “I take exception to that, Bill. I smell just as bad as any other man. I take my monthly bath, just like the queen of England.”

“My mistake,” Bill says, sounding more agreeable than usual. “You do indeed smell awful, and I’ll avoid downplaying the severity of it in the future.”

Tony nods. “See that you do.”

Over the morning and afternoon, they insult everything about each other, from Bill’s hair, to the way that Tony’s poncho smells like a wet dog —he supposes that it really does— and, for some reason, it’s the most fun Tony has had in ages. Even back home with the gang, he sometimes feels like people are putting up with him as much as enjoying his company. Bill seems to be having as much fun as he is, even if it is because he’s insulting Tony’s horsemanship.

By the time they stop to make camp that evening, Tony is convinced that he could, if only Laufey weren't looking for him, be friends with Bill. If _only_ Laufey weren’t looking for him... It might make Tony’s life harder, in having to deal with the underhanded cut-throat screw himself. It would also make Tony’s life easier, because he definitely wouldn’t be worried about causing the end of a man he was starting to like.

 

In years to come, Tony thinks, he’ll wonder what he was thinking in this exact moment. He'll wonder, _what possessed me to offer_ : “Why don’t I teach you how to use that gun tonight, Bill? Never know when you’re gonna need to use it.”

Bill pauses and seems to consider it for a moment before nodding. “I suppose that would be a good idea. There isn’t much point in my carrying it around if I have no skill with it.”

Tony grabs two wrinkly apples out of the pack and tosses one to Bill, who catches it with a raised eyebrow.

“You gotta have something to shoot at, don’t ya?” he asks, before taking a bite out of his apple. It’s mealy, as expected; he hasn’t had a great apple since he left California. Nevada isn’t exactly the ideal place to grow them and, after all, these particular ones have been sitting in a barrel for months.

Bill looks at his apple in thought for a moment, then shrugs and nods. “I suppose there are few other options.”

“I suppose,” Tony agrees.

They eat their apples in a surprisingly companionable silence. Tony isn’t sure why he’s more comfortable with this silence than earlier ones, but maybe it’s just because he doesn’t think Bill’s about to haul off and hit him anymore. It’s happened before.

When they have two serviceable apple cores, Tony takes them a few yards off and sets them up as targets. “Now don’t expect you’re just gonna hit these right away, Billy boy. Marksmanship is a skill that takes years to develop. And if you don’t have a decent gun, all the skill in the world won’t make it happen.”

“So you’re telling me that I should expect to fail?” Bill asks, one arrogant eyebrow quirked.

Tony grins. “A-yuh.”

“I think I should take that as a personal challenge,” Bill shoots back.

Tony feels his grin widen and thinks it’s probably taken on a predatory aspect. “You wanna bet on that?”

“Bet?” Bill smirks at him. “Bet with what? All you have is or was mine, except your precious gun.”

Tony laughs. “Oh no, there’s no way I’d risk losing Susie to you, on the off chance you’re some kind of savant. Cooking dinner, on the other hand…”

The look that crosses Bill’s face is something between horror and disgust, and Tony wonders if he’s ever cooked a thing in his life. “Cooking? If you put that on a bet, you should also hope that you lose.”

It makes Tony laugh even harder for a moment before he catches his breath and shakes his head. “You don’t understand. It doesn’t make a difference which of us cooks dinner. I’d bet money that I can’t cook any better than you. It’s just a matter of who has to own up for burning the beans.”

Bill sighs and mutters something about not seeing a decent meal since St. Louis, and Tony can’t help but commiserate. He hasn’t seen decent grub in weeks, either.

“Now, now,” Tony chides. “You start fantasizing about steak and potatoes, and you’ll have an even harder time trying to focus on hitting these apples.”

For the first time, Tony is pretty sure that Bill is nervous. “What if I fail to hit them?”

“In the industry, we call that a miss,” Tony says, holding Bill's shooting iron between them and loading it slowly.

He doesn’t know if Bill has any experience loading a gun, but he doesn’t want to insult the man by asking out loud. Since it’s simple enough to do, he figures Bill can learn from just watching. The hard part is shooting and hitting what you’re aiming at.

“Your vocabulary is impeccable,” Bill says, his voice as dry as the desert they’re standing in. “Do give me a language lesson.”

“Oh, I could give you an English lesson,” Tony agrees. “But that’s not why we’re here."

Bill nods his agreement and takes a step back to watch Tony intently.

“Okay, this is the easiest way.” Tony says the words while demonstrating a stance and grip. He aims at one of the cores and looks over at Bill, raising an eyebrow in question.

Bill nods his understanding, and holds his hand out for the gun, which Tony hands over without hesitation. He wonders if that’s wise of him, but, well… not many people have ever accused Tony Stark of having too much common sense.

Bill takes a moment with the gun, testing its weight and his grip on it. Then he mimics Tony’s previous stance, slowly aiming the gun at the apple core. “Should I just pull the trigger, then?”

“Kind of,” Tony agrees. “But if you just pull on it, you pull the nose of the gun up, and that’ll throw off your aim. So it’s less of a pull and more of a squeeze.”

For a moment, everything goes deathly silent. Bill takes a breath, long and ragged, and holds it in as he squeezes the trigger. He misses the core, of course, but by less than Tony expected. It’s not a bad first shot at all.

Bill scowls, and on him, the expression says more than any words could.

“Hey, now,” Tony says, putting a hand on his shoulder. “That was a decent first shot, Billy.”

If anything, the scowl deepens. “I missed!”

“Of course you missed. It was the first time you’ve ever shot a gun, right?” Tony waits for Bill’s nod before continuing. “Most people don’t instantly turn into dabster shooters. It takes time, Billy-boy. Now try again, but this time don’t stop breathing.”

Bill seems to consider for a minute, then nods. He looks back up at the apple cores and takes aim again, his face as blank and serious as death.

Three shots later, he finally hits the first apple, and nearly drops the gun in shock. He pulls himself together quickly, though, and turns to Tony with a wide smirk that says he never doubted himself. The man is almost as good as Tony at covering up his insecurities.

Tony claps obligingly. "Now the other one," he says, "before we run out of daylight." Hopefully before they run out of bullets, too.

Bill bites his tongue and raises the gun.


	3. Go the Full Figure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **go the full figure:** to go to the fullest extent in the attainment of any object, do things on a large scale

"Fastest gun in the West, ladies and gentlemen," Tony comments idly and bites off a chunk of hardtack.

"Shush, I'm trying to concentrate." Bill is aiming carefully, looking down the sight at the empty can —they ran out of apples two days ago—. His tongue is poking out from between his teeth; Tony's pretty sure he doesn't know about it.

Five years later, he squeezes the trigger. A puff of dirt rises about two inches from the can.

Bill stomps his foot and screams in frustration.

The horses get startled into a nicker.

Tony can't help it, he snorts. "Relax, Billy-kid, a man with a bullet two inches from his heart is still gonna be just as dead."

Bill huffs. "Don't call me that. And give me more bullets." He holds out his hand palm up.

"Sorry, no can do." Tony shrugs. "They're almost all gone and we need some in case you gotta use 'em for something other than target practice."

Like yesterday, when a rattlesnake came out of the brush, for example, but Tony isn't about to mention that. Last time he poked fun at Bill for letting out the littlest squeak, Bill mentioned wanting to try a moving target next.

"We need more apples, too," Bill says, approaching Tony to get the last six bullets. "I hate hardtack." He loads the gun with hard-earned ease.

"Wah, wah, wah," Tony mocks, rubbing his eyes like he was crying. "In _my_ day we ate hardtack for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and we _liked_ it that way."

Bill laughs, teeth flashing white in the light of the setting sun. "Allow me to guess... You had to walk uphill both ways to get it?"

"Dang right we did." Tony matches his grin. Bill has certainly mellowed out in the past week. Now Tony can see the wit behind the chronic frown.

 

They settle down to sleep, bedrolls laid between their horses for warmth. The cold has gotten worse with each night, and soon it will be unbearable. They are going to have to start renting rooms if this keeps up, though Tony isn't sure how well that idea is going to fly with his travelling companion.

"I'll go into the next town we come across," he says instead. "Bullets, apples, anything else?"

Bill chuckles. "A hot bath would be nice. And a real meal, cooked in a real pot. With potatoes."

Tony finds himself nodding along. Yeah, that sounds like paradise right now. "And a bed. An actual bed with an actual mattress, or at least some comfortable hay." He sighs longingly. Then he realizes this is his chance. "Maybe we stay at the boarding house."

Bill's side of the camp is silent, and Tony wonders if he fell asleep in the middle of their conversation. And then:

"I have to avoid towns as much as possible," he says at last in a small voice. "I'm a wanted man."

Tony's eyes widen. Is Bill finally going to tell him....? "Yeah, I noticed. I'm not lacking in docity." He doesn't say anything else, though, hoping Bill would fill the silence.

Bill does. Or rather, Loki Aistrom does. Because that's apparently his real name. His family died in a fire. Wait, no, he should start at the beginning. His father owned a railroad company (yes, Tony is familiar, he's robbed it a few times. "Ow, why did you hit me?"). Anyway. There's this man, Pierre LaFey, goes by Laufey, who owns the competition (yes, Tony is familiar, he's robbed it a few times. "You have no sense of self preservation." "Yeah."). Laufey's been trying to buy his father's company for a while now, but Odin was a stubborn mule. And then his family died in a fire  ("Convenient."), leaving Loki as the sole heir completely by accident, since he was supposed to be in the house as well ("But I didn't want to see Father if I could help it, so I stayed a few more days."). Which ended up being a stroke of luck for Laufey, because now he can persuade ("Ouch." "Don't make me think about it") Loki to sign the company over.

"If he can find me, at any rate," Bil—Loki concludes.

Tony hums. It's as he suspected, but it's nice to have it confirmed. He does have the right guy, after all. Good. His belly roils at the mere thought, but he ignores it. _It's for the best._ "So, why not disguise yourself?"

Bill— _Loki_ , darn it, scoffs. "Sure. I just chop my legs off at the knees, shall I? In case you haven't noticed, I am pretty distinctive."

"Well, you already have long hair and a pretty face," he muses. "Why not wear a dress and pretend to be a woman?"

Loki sits up at this, taking the blankets with him. "Are you insane?"

"Well, they are looking for a tall man, right?" Tony defends, flushing. Loki might actually look good in a dress, slender as he is. "Not a tall woman accompanied by her husband."

Sputtering, Loki manages, _"Now we are married?!"_

"Think about it, alright?" Tony snaps. "And get back here, I'm freezing."

Grumbling, Loki does.

 

* * *

 

After getting kicked out of a seamstress' work room —he was apparently too 'countrified' for her noble tastes— and subsequently going back inside to fetch his forgotten hat —and steal a golden locket on a chain to redress the insult—, Tony is at a bit of a loss. To be honest, he hasn't the faintest idea where women buy their clothes, Natasha always seems to just _have_ them, and all he's ever heard about the process is the word _seamstress._

He chooses to go to the general store over wandering aimlessly around Palestone and hoping to come across something. As he's paying for the food and a new neck rag, he asks the clerk if she can give him a hint.

Apparently, a woman died in childbirth a few days ago and her family is selling her clothes. They aren't keeping them for themselves, he learns, because the woman in question was freakishly tall and they fit nobody and, besides, they'd rather have the money to care for the newborn babe.

 _The Lord will provide_ , Tony thinks ironically. He decides right then and there not to tell Loki that someone had to die so he could have his hot bath.

Directions are easy enough to follow, and soon he finds himself in the presence of nearly an entire wardrobe, sans the nightdress which had served as grave clothes. He selects a long dark gray skirt with a matching jacket —he's not sure the shoulders will fit Loki, but trying it on would involve convincing his travelling companion to come here—, blouse and a bonnet, evidently the late woman's Sunday clothes. In return, he pays them double what they are asking, and they thank him tearfully.

With the bonnet, the clothes, the bucket-load of hairpins and the locket, Loki might actually manage to pass as a woman.

On his way back to camp, Tony passes the post office. He stops in front of it, thinking, and finally decides he might as well contact his gang. He can use them as backup in San Fran, in case Loki finds out what Tony's planning for him and tries to make a run for it. On the other hand, if they _did_ get caught despite Tony's drawing attention onto himself, Bruce will be on the lookout for him. Whatever the case, he'll still need to let them know where he's going so they can meet.

It's a good job the silk-wrapped seamstress with the fancy dresses kicked him out, or he would have wasted all his —Loki's— money on ruffles and corsets, instead of being able to waste it on this. 

Peach bumps his hand with her head as he's tying her to a post, and he strokes her face affectionately, murmuring, "Be back in a jiff."

He steps inside and asks for a sheet of paper and something to write with, and he composes a letter to the Avengers. He knows better than to spill the beans on writing —"Never write down anything you aren't comfortable with the enemy knowing," Sergeant Fury always said—, so he's as vague as possible. He just needs them to know that they’re meeting in Sacramento an accompanying Tony and his ‘package’ to Frisco.

| 

_Dearest Natalie,_

_How are you doing, my little dove? I hope you got home alright. I hated leaving you alone on that train with just your friends for company, but we both know I had to stay behind. In a surprising turn of events, I seem to have finally gotten the lucky break we've all been praying for. A man hired me to take a parcel to Sacramento, and he'll pay me once I deliver it. We'll meet again soon! Tell your brothers I'm coming over, will ya, dear?_

_Looking forward to seeing you all,_

_Your loving father._

|   
---|---|---  
  
He makes a copy, a backup in case the first one gets lost, and addresses one to Reno and the other to Rocklin. Bruce or Natasha will receive the missive at one of those cities. They'll have ample time to gather up the Avengers and take them to Sacramento, considering how long it will take Tony and Loki to get there on horseback.

Although, now that he thinks about it, if the gull about being husband and wife worked, they might actually be able to go by train. They hatched a sensible enough plan to cross to California, but Tony would much, much rather risk his life and cross Donner Pass in mere minutes by train than risk his life traipsing through a mountain trail in the middle of winter.

He mounts Peach and urges her into a light trot, wanting to reach camp as soon as possible so he can pitch the idea to Loki.

 

"No," Loki says absently. He's holding the skirt against his legs, checking the length.

Tony blows a raspberry. "And why the heck not? Do you _wanna_ end up having to eat me? 'Cause lemme tell you, right here, right now, I'm not as tasty as I look."

"Those are only stories." Loki arches an eyebrow at him, like he can't believe Tony can be _this_ gullible. "You have already talked me into purchasing a wagon for the journey; we shall have enough provisions."

It earns him a long stare.

"This the farthest you've ever gone on horseback?" Tony asks. "Probably travelled by train everywhere, since ya daddy owned the trains."

Having deemed the skirt good enough, Loki folds it up and stuffs it in a saddlebag, which is already full to bursting thanks to the bonnet. "Of course not," he says dryly. "I was gallivanting across the desert with no company but that of my noble steed, all of my own will."

Right. Greenhorn. Tony needs to keep that in mind. "Well then, there you have it, Dr. Lawyer, you know nothing of mountain trails. Seriously, we can get on at Truckee and back off at Auburn."

"I said no." Loki huffs. "Now let us go while there is still sunlight." He mounts Hurricane and starts her walking without looking at Tony.

Tony bites back the urge to run up to him and pull him off the horse so he can punch him properly. "As you wish, your majesty," he mutters, getting on Peach and following Loki.

He can't wait until they arrive at San Francisco so he can finally get rid of him.

 

* * *

 

Loki is visibly antsy on their ride into the next town. It isn’t that he fidgets or anything so obvious, but he’s on high alert, glancing in the direction of every loud sound and keeping his fingers twisted tight in Hurricane’s reins.

“Cool down, dearest,” Tony admonishes him. He adds, quietly, “You’re worse than a cat in a room full of rocking chairs. You’re gonna get people looking at us.” Tony could just play it off as having a country bumpkin for a wife; someone who rarely sees a town at all. Still, he doesn’t want to draw any unnecessary attention.

“Don’t call me dearest,” Loki hisses under his breath.

Tony grins over at his lovely bride. “Something else you want me to call you, sweet pea?”

He gets a glare from under the bonnet for his trouble, but Loki’s hands have loosened in the reins, so he counts it as a win. He’ll take any win he can get just now. In fact, it's good to know that he can calm Loki down by baiting him.

When they dismount in front of the inn, Loki manages it with at least as much modesty as Tony’s ever seen in a lady, so he figures they’re probably safe for now. In fact, the prissy attitude that annoys him half to death actually turns out to be a good thing here.

Loki’s face doesn’t look anything like a woman up close, but his affected mannerisms are close enough that they aren’t drawing overmuch attention.

They make their way into the building and up to the counter, and thankfully, Loki stays as quiet as planned. Tony is sure is won’t last, but he keeps his fingers crossed anyway. Maybe Loki’s self-preservation instincts will win out over his constant irritation at every single thing Tony does.

There’s an elderly man at the counter, white-haired and short from old age, smiling softly as he polishes a glass. He looks about as harmless as a man can, in their circumstances. Even better, he’s wearing spectacles, so it seems unlikely that he can see well enough to suss them out.

“A room for the night?” he asks.

Tony nods his agreement. “Yep. Me and the missus," he points at Loki with his chin, "are looking forward to a nice bath after the dusty road. It’s been a long trip.” He grins tiredly for effect, and not all of it is fibbing.

The old man smiles again, and gives an understanding nod. “Getting dry out there, isn’t it? Travelling in the winter is hard on a man, and even harder on the ladies. Good of you to make sure she gets a bath and a soft bed.”

“I figure if ya marry a woman, it makes her your responsibility, ya know? If she aint happy, I aint happy.” Tony gives his best ‘harried husband of a harpy’ smile, thin and a little strained at the edges, and pretends to glance at Loki from the corner of his eye, as though seeking 'her' approval.

Loki is unimpressed. He's pursing his lips and visibly refraining from rolling his eyes.

Tony bites back a scathing remark ("You could at least help pretend") and grins conspiratorially at the innkeeper. "A hot meal would be much appreciated, too."

They talk money —inn is quite expensive, but worth it— and then the innkeeper calls over a girl of about sixteen, Rosa, who turns out to be his granddaughter. She's spotty with pimples and has the bored look that all children on the cusp of adulthood seem to have.

And she is to assist Loki with the bathing, apparently.

Loki's eyes bug out at the mere notion. He glances urgently at Tony from under the rim of the bonnet, like Tony is some dunderhead who can't appreciate the danger of letting someone see his 'wife' naked..

"No need," Tony says quickly. For good measure, he leans on the counter and murmurs, "been hopin' for a little alone time, if you know what I mean." He winks salaciously at the girl.

Rosa blushes prettily and her face away. Cute.

Unlike Loki, whose glare is boring holes into the back of his head.

"So we'll just need the hot water and some soap, if you've got any," Tony finishes. Fancy inn that charges as much as this does should have soap that won't skin them alive, and he figures it might improve Loki's disposition.

Tony can only hope he doesn't get shot the second they are behind closed doors.

 

Loki attempting to bathe by himself is entertaining in the extreme. He's obviously used big tubs and piping hot water, if the way he's kneeling in the wooden basin, back hunched over and breath shuddering, is any indication.

Tony's watching him from the bed, biting his lips to keep from laughing.

"You sure you don't need any help?" he asks. "I could wash your back." It's surprising dirty, too: grime has settled along sweat tracks, particularly along his spine.

"I'm quite sure, yes," Loki replies curtly, massaging the oil Rosa kindly left for 'her' into his hair. His fingers keep getting stuck in the knots.

Grinning, Tony says, "I'm a dab hand with a comb—"

 

Green eyes glint at him like daggers from over Loki's pale shoulder. "Shut. Up."

Tony shuts up obediently, though he can't keep from smiling when he sees Loki stretching and trying to both stay in the basin and reach the soap, which is in a little dish on the table. No matter how far he reaches, his fingertips can barely bush the dish.

It's nearly painful to watch, like a one-man rodeo, except at rodeos you can snack on candied apples while you watch the spectacle.

Tony takes pity on him and walks over to table. He takes the soap —it's fancy stuff, scented and everything; the innkeeping probably thinks he's pampering newlyweds— and arches an eyebrow expectantly.

Loki glares back, stubbornly silent. From this side, Tony can see the way his stomach is quivering from cold. That coupled with his hair plastered to the sides of his face makes him look absolutely pathetic.

Eventually, Loki closes his eyes in defeat and sighs, "Would you be so kind as to pass me the soap, please?"

How can a man refuse such a polite request? Tony gives him the soap, offering his partner a wide smile.

Still glaring, Loki works up a lather on the wash rag and starts rubbing at his face, as if trying to scrape the accumulated grime by force alone. When he raises his head after rinsing it off, he realizes Tony is still watching him. "Do you mind?"

"Not one bit," Tony replies, smiling. Loki's usually so composed... it's fun seeing him like this, pale and shivering and miserable. "You missed a spot behind your ear, by the bye."

Not dignifying that with an answer, Loki starts working on his sparsely-haired chest, paying special attention to his armpits. When he tries to wash his back, however, he nearly falls over.

Tony rolls his eyes and, without asking, grabs the washrag from where it fell on the floor. "Let me." He scrubs Loki's back, leaving behind very pink but squeaky clean skin.

Amazingly, Loki lets him. He even relaxes a little, letting his shoulders drop. "I'm not used to this," he explains.

"What a surprise." Grinning, Tony pours a bucketful of murky water over him, rinsing the suds off and making him gasp.

When he can breathe again, Loki wipes the wet hair off his face and glowers. "I hate you."

"Lovya too, darling." Finding himself without anything to do, Tony fetches Loki's comb and starts scraping the oil off the black tresses, which glide between his fingers. It comes out practically muddy, which give him pause. He had no idea long hair could get _this_ dirty.

After, he offers to wash his feet, and this time Loki does shout at him. Tony makes a strategic retreat to the bed, from where he watches Loki crouch to wash his legs and crotch. The sight of that pale ass makes him grin, and he jokingly offers Loki to wash that for him, too.

It earns him a soiled washrag to the face.

Soon enough, though, Loki's all nice and clean and desperate to get out of the tepid water. He gestures Tony to bring the towel over and stands up to receive it, wrapping it around himself like a cape. Tony catches a brief glimpse of pink among the dark hair between his legs before it disappears behind the rough fabric.

He looks away and helps Loki off the tub. Once he's sure he isn't about to slip and break his crown, he starts undoing the buttons of his shirt. "My turn."

"Shouldn't you wait for Rosa to bring more water?" Loki asks from behind him.

Tony snorts. Kid's family had more money than they knew what to do with, if Loki's used having fresh water for each body. "She ain't gonna. That's not how it works for us mere mortals. We have to make do with used bathwater." He shimmies out of his pants and peels the long underwear off.

Hopefully he can convince Loki to stay long enough in this inn to get their clothes washed, because otherwise he'll only use them for kindling.

Excited that he gets to clean up —in water than has only been used _once_ , no less—, he practically dives into the tub. The water is still warm enough that his toes stop aching. He washes himself quickly, not wanting to catch a cold, and uses the last of the soap on his hair. He prays that will get rid of the itch he's been having on his scalp the last few weeks—somehow, he doubts Loki is any good at picking lice. 

Speaking of Loki...

"Hey, _wife_ , be a dear and wash my back," he says, holding out the washrag.

His beleaguered 'wife' sighs tiredly, but does approach him and take the rag. "If you call me something on that vein again, I'll strangle you with this."

Tony chuckles. "Noted."

The roughness of the washrag against his back makes his sigh in pleasure. He's already imagining how glorious a mattress will feel under his back and how he won't take up with dust up his nose this time. "Best idea I've ever had," he murmurs.

Loki hums in agreement behind him. "I admit it: you were right." He rubs up the side Tony's neck with the rag, cleaning behind his right ear. Gently, too; he's probably too unused to helping other people bathe to know how rough he can be with that rag.

Suddenly Tony's skin is all a-tingle, and he tilts his head forward to let Loki clean the other side. "Yeah," he sighs, mostly just to acknowledge Loki's words. He can't remember if anyone's ever washed his neck like this. He had no idea it could feel this good. He swallows hard. "I think I can take it from here."

The gentle fingers are removed. "Of course," Loki says, plopping the washrag down on Tony's head. "I shall see to a meal while you finish." He unfolds himself, blocking the light from the gas lamps momentarily, and walks off.

Tony waits until he hears the door closing behind him to breathe again. His heart is galloping. He has no idea what just happened.

 

Loki comes back with a tray just as Tony is doing the last button of his shirt. He knocks on the door by kicking it a couple times.

Rolling his eyes, Tony helps open the door and his jaw drops when he sees what's on the tray. "Oh, wow."

Steaming hot soup, real fresh bread that _isn't hardtack_ , roast mutton and vegetables. The latter are probably left-over from dinner and cold, but it's still more meat than Tony's seen in weeks. And beer, glorious _beer_! Seems the innkeeper is set on pampering them, after all. Either that, or he saw Loki's wad of cash.

"You could clear the table," Loki suggests, sounding ticked off.

Tony realizes he's been staring at the food and drooling. "Will do." He almost throws everything on the table to the floor, he's that eager, and helps Loki unload the tray.

The first bite of soup-dipped bread tastes like what he imagines heaven might, and the first sip of beer is enough to make Tony forgive Loki for making him trudge through the desert in the middle of winter. It's obvious Loki's enjoying the moment too: his head is tilted slightly back, his eyes half-closed, and he's making pleased little noises with his throat.

They fight over the last piece of bread, of course, but Tony lets Loki have it in the end; he's so damned sated. Hair washed, belly full, soft bed just waiting for him... he feels like he could sleep for a week.

Loki makes him take the tray down, though, on account of him having been the one to bring it up. He refuses, but loses the ensuing staring contest anyway. By the time he comes to their room again, he's chilled and ready to jump into bed.

The room is dark. Loki must have turned off the gas lights before going to bed. From what Tony can see in the light coming in from the hall, he's facing away from the door.

Closing the door and plunging the room into complete darkness, Tony gets his boots off. The sheets are still cool when he slides into the bed, so he shuffles up next to Loki and makes sure to tuck the blankets around his back. Loki's hair tickles his face, so he moves it away.

Loki presses back into him, like he's done every time they've bundled up together against the cold. "Good night," he murmurs.

Tony wonders what he'll sound like when he betrays him and sells him out to Laufey. He scrunches his eyes shut and banishes the image from his mind. "Night, Loki," he whispers back.


	4. The Owl Hoot Trail

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **the owl hoot trail:** the outlaw way of life

When Tony heads downstairs to get the tray for breakfast, Rosa gives him a funny sort of smirking-conspiratorial look. If Tony had actually come with his wife, he probably would have understood the look but, since he didn’t, he’s flummoxed about what she could possibly think he’s been up to.

After she hands him the tray, though, she stops him and puts a tiny extra dish of stewed fruit on the tray and gives him a sly smile. “Fer the bride,” she says in a coy voice. “To keep up her energy.”

 _Ooooh_. Right. He’d forgotten that the innkeeper thinks they’re newlyweds. The granddaughter doesn’t _know_ what they’d been up to, but she certainly has some assumptions about it. He grins widely at her and nods his thanks. “I’m sure she’ll appreciate it,” he agrees as he turns and heads back toward the room.

Loki is still asleep when he gets in and sets the tray down on the table. He’s definitely not going to share the girl’s opinions with Loki. After the somewhat odd bout of intimacy that came out of nowhere yesterday, the last thing he needs is to point out things that might make the whole situation even more awkward.

The two of them still have to live with each other until they reach San Francisco, so Tony needs to keep his trap shut.

He sets out the breakfast, then goes over to rouse Loki. He hesitates a moment —in his sleep, Loki looks a lot less like the asshole he is and more like a china doll— before touching his shoulder. That's all it takes, which surprises him. He keeps thinking of the other man as a spoiled child, forgetting that he’s already proven that he’s slightly more than meets the eye.

Loki sits up and stretches his arms out, yawning. His cheeks are marked with imprints from the pillow.  “Do we have to go?” he asks somewhat petulantly, apparently determined to negate Tony’s previous conclusions.

“You wanna stay in… Hell, I don’t even know what the name of this town is,” Tony says, leaning his head to one side as though the missing information will be dislodged. “Well, it don’t matter. You don’t wanna stay in this town.”

“I suppose not,” Loki agrees, his tone light for a change.

It seems that Loki needed a bath, a good meal, and a night in a real bed even more than Tony did. Maybe Loki isn’t as much of an ass as Tony had originally thought. Sleeping on the ground, eating trail food, and running from men with guns wasn’t the sort of thing that put a body in a good mood.

The two of them eat at a leisurely pace, not in any particular hurry to get back on the trail. Tony wants to get to San Fran and all, but the travel isn’t something he's particularly looking forward to. Damn Loki for not agreeing to take the train. Tony liked riding just fine, but it would be so much faster and easier by train. Not to mention a lot warmer.

Also, Tony wouldn’t have as much time to think about what he's planning to do with Loki if they travelled a lot faster.

He’ll talk to Bruce about it when they get to Sacramento, he decides. He sometimes struggles with big moral choices since he left the army. Everything seemed simple then: just point at whomever you were told to point, and shoot. He still wishes it had actually been as simple as it seemed. Bruce is good at making decisions, though. Somehow, he came out of that mess with an impeccable moral compass, and he has yet to lead Tony anywhere but North.

Not that Tony’s made that easy on him.

 

When they finally find themselves riding out of town, the sun is well and truly up, and Tony’s none too thrilled about that. It’s not too hot, but that kind of sun exposure can burn a man even in the middle of winter.

Still, he supposes, it’s better than snow.

One would think that a good night’s rest would make the next day’s travels easier, but it never quite does. Mostly, it just makes you daydream about the nice warm bath and soft blankets you're leaving behind. And the hot soup. Tony would kill for a bowl of hot soup, even though he'd just had one last night.

They ride till sundown up increasingly steep mountain paths, only taking time off to rest and water the horses when they come across a stream. The nasty combination of a meal of hardtack, a cold bedroll over rocky terrain, and no spare water to wash off the day’s accumulated dirt feels like a personal insult by the time they stop for the night.

Though Tony wants to be bitter about Loki’s insistence that they travel by horse, he does understand it. He wouldn’t be in any hurry to catch a train either, if the man who owned half the trains out of San Francisco wanted him dead. (Of course, Laufey _does_ want Tony dead, he just doesn’t know it. Hopefully.)

Loki is quiet, which Tony isn’t ever surprised about anymore, but it seems like a different sort of quiet than the sullen man he met not so long ago. He’s not sure whether it’s a good thing or a bad one, that he’s gotten to know Loki well enough to tell the difference between pensive and annoyed. It’s not like it’s a particularly big difference.

The strangest part about the day’s travel is that Tony isn’t as inclined to talk as he usually is. On a normal day, he’ll talk himself hoarse even if he’s riding alone, just for the sake of the noise. Tony isn’t thrilled with the silence, but neither does he find himself compelled to fill it.

They bed down in that same quiet. Loki seems to have no desire to practice his shooting for a change, and Tony can't care to do much other than try to get a little shut-eye.

 

When he wakes, it’s to an unhappy surprise. The bad part is that he’s getting used to those. The worst part is that they're covered in snow. And it's melting through his blanket, just to top it off. _I cursed us_ , he realizes, _by thinking that too much sun was better than snow_. Judging by the overcast grey of the sky, it might not yet be finished with them, either.

"Loki," he says tonelessly. There is no reply, so he elbows the form sleeping behind him.

Loki startles awake. "What was that for?" he complains, sitting up, and then stops short halfway. "Why is it snowing?" His words puff white in the cold air.

"Because God hates me, belike," Tony replies, curling into a ball and pulling the blanket Loki lifted back around himself. It's his fault they are getting snowed on, he figures, so he doesn't deserve to be warm.

"I _meant_ ," Loki tugs at the blanket, "why is it snowing _here_ ," he manages to wrestle it from Tony and puts it around himself like a cape, "in a God-damned _desert_?"

At first Tony's breath hitches, because he never even thought Loki _could_ curse that harshly, but then the rest of the statement sinks in and he starts laughing. He starts laughing so hard that he has to sit up to avoid choking on his own spit.

"What?" Loki asks indignantly.

"It, it's just," Tony wheezes, "it's Nevada!" He has to put a hand over his eyes to control his laughter. "What did you think 'nevada' meant?"

Loki's lips part, then close, then press together, then open again. "I don't know," he says at last. "I told you I didn't study languages." He's flushing when Tony looks at him.

"It means 'snowed over', you anglomaniac," Tony says matter-of-factly. He gestures to the scenery around them, pointing out the accuracy of the name. "Look, you're paying me to convey you safely to 'Frisco. Trust me, we don't wanna do it this way." His words hang in the air, frosted over, before dissipating.

Loki watches him sullenly out the corner of his eyes. It takes him a while, but finally he nods. "Very well. We shall ride to the next town and take the train."

Inwardly praising the Lord for making his travelling companion see reason, Tony amuses himself by blowing a white cloud at Loki.

Loki pushes him away.

 

* * *

 

"I really love what they've done with the place," Tony comments as they walk into Reno, leading the horses by the reins. One of their blankets is wrapped around his shoulders like a shawl.

Loki's wearing the other one. Little cones of snow have formed on top of 'her' bonnet and on either shoulder, and the tip of his nose is red. He glances at Tony askance, his eyes bright green against the milky white of his face and the drabness of his clothes. "Mm?"

"Haven't been through here in awhile," Tony explains, trying not to smile. "Last time was ten years ago, and the town consisted entirely of a depot and a house."

And now it's unrecognizable. Shops and buildings three stories tall have been set up along the main street, and houses have popped up from the ground like fungi. People and horses are milling around. And there are women here, too, and children playing in the streets; back then, the fledgling town had been populated entirely by men.

 

"There's the station," Loki says, interrupting his bout of nostalgia, "we ought to go." He starts towards it, pulling his horse along.

"Whoa!" Tony steps in front of him, blocking his path and making Hurricane recoil uneasily. "Where are you going? We need to ditch the horses first."

Loki narrows his eyes at him. "We do not," he says slowly, as if talking to a particularly dense child. "That's what livestock cars are for."

Tony's mouth falls open. "Are you—no." He shakes his head. "No. You can't possibly be suggesting that we go in there," he gestured to the station, "and buy tickets? _For the horses?_ "

Affronted, Loki exclaims, "Of course! How else were you planning to secure passage for us?"

People are looking at them curiously, drawn by Loki's loud voice.

Glancing nervously around, Tony tugs Peach closer so she's hiding them from passersby. "I planned," he murmurs, "on selling the horses and sneaking a ride in a freight train." Loki keeps staring at him incomprehensibly, so he leans close enough that he can whisper, "What happened to travelling incognito?"

Loki scoffs. "I am in disguise," he reminds Tony sternly, though thankfully in a soft voice. "And you may not give two hoots about your horse, but there is no way on God's green earth I'm leaving Hurricane behind." He glances affectionately at his horse, who butts her nose against his hand.

"Hey, I love Peachy-keen here, too, but I ain't about to let Laufey find us 'cause of her." And Tony means that, even though he can't look her in the eye after he says it.

That earns him a sneer; Loki's clearly unimpressed by this willingness of his to just cast off his noble steed like so much dead weight the second she becomes inconvenient.

He has to look away from that, too. _If you think this is bad_ , he thinks, _then just wait until I sell you out to curry favor with the man who burned your family death_. And, great, now he feels like he drank a bucket of tar, all oily and sticky inside. There will never be prayers strong enough to earn forgiveness from the Lord, but his gang, his Avengers, will understand.

"Fortunately for your horse," Loki says darkly, interrupting his guilt, "Hurricane is coming with." He pulls away from him, towards the train station. "So, unless you would prefer to stay here..."

Knowing when he's been defeated has never been Tony's strong point, but Loki is both his boss and his bounty, so he can't afford to lose him. Before following, he lays a hand on Peach's warm neck, feeling the strong muscle underneath the brown and white coat, and lets out a shaky sigh. "I'm peskily sorry for that, girl."

His horse flicks an ear.

"Stark!" Loki shouts, annoyed.

Tony rolls his eyes. "Yes, dear, I'm coming."

 

"Stop doing that," Loki hisses. He's looking at Tony in a way that the other passengers probably would describe as 'demure', but is actually the result of inclining his head in such a way that his face is hidden in the shade cast by his bonnet.

Tony rolls his eyes, but stops rubbing at the plush upholstery of the seat and resigns himself to watching the snowy rocks through the window. There's something immensely satisfying in whizzing past the landscape that would have otherwise taken them at least two weeks of cold and hunger to traverse.

"Honestly," Loki murmurs, "you are such a child." He's annoyed that Tony keeps calling the other passenger's attention with his oohing and ahing.

"Well, your Highness, excuse the unwashed peasant," Tony bites back, mindfully under his breath. "He hain't traveled so fine since before he joined the army."

It's true. The car Loki bought them passage on might not be the height of luxury (Tony had warned Loki against spending money that big; it tended to attract flies, so to speak), but it's still better than anything he's used to; he usually travels in the poor-man's cars, with wooden seats even more uncomfortable than church pews. Here, they are far away enough from the locomotive that the air outside the window is clear, rather than full of cinders.

"The army?" Loki drops the pretense of demureness and turns to look at him fully. "You said that once before. You talk and talk about everything, but you only mentioned that once."

Right. Big mouth strikes again.

"It just don’t come up," he answers casually. "Haven't been in since '66, so it doesn't matter."

Loki watches him through narrowed eyes. "Why did you leave? You are obviously not crippled." As Tony says nothing, he continues, "Deserter? Hm, no, they would have hanged you." He gasps theatrically. "Oh, I _see_ , is that why you are a fugitive?"

Tony glares at him, both for bringing back memories he's been trying for forget for fifteen years and for joking about things he doesn't understand. "No."

"Oh, do tell me!" Loki's cruel smile falls off, and he bites his lip. "You know everything about me, but I only know your name. And that you are a dab hand at shooting a gun."

He looks away from Loki, turning to the window instead. There's nothing interesting there right now, just snow and rocks, but it beats Loki's beseeching face. He considers his past, considers what might not break his heart to talk about, and sighs. "I was a fool. My daddy warned me not to, but all the more reason to join, you know?"

Loki nods. If there is anything this kid knows, it's the appeal of going against Father's wishes.

"So they gave me a gun and a uniform and pointed me towards a bunk." Tony frowns; he can see that cursed bed in his head now, with Rhodey, eternally young now, lying on the bottom one. "Met my best friend there." And Steve, too, but Loki doesn't need to know that he'd been friends with him. "He taught me everything, from how to shoot to how to clean my boots."

"Is he part of you gang?" Loki asks softly.

Tony shakes his head. "He's dead. My commanding officer shot him." His eyes widen — he hadn't meant for that to come out.

"What?" Loki exclaims, loud enough that two of the other passengers turn to look. Thankfully it came out high-pitched, or else the looks might have been another sort. "Why?"

To tell or not to tell? It can't hurt, he figures, and Rhodey deserves to be remembered. "Know about the Snake War?" Tony waits for Loki to nod, but he just shakes his head. "Nevermind. It was us against the Shoshones. I can't even remember why we were fighting." It's a lie, he remembers perfectly well: someone found gold in their territory. "Captain told us to attack this tribe... They were friendlies. He wanted to exterminate their vile race, he said."

"That sounds horrible," Loki says earnestly. As if he can relate at all.

"Yeah." Tony remembers Rhodey's expression when they arrived at the camp and found no warriors at all, just families who greeted them peacefully. "I didn't want to do it, but I was too much of a coward to disobey orders. My best friend wasn't." He smiles sadly, still in awe of Rhodey's bravery even after all these years. "Captain Walker got wind and ordered a lieutenant to execute him."

And Lieutenant Steven Grant Rogers had chosen loyalty to his country over loyalty to his friends.

"So, after we were done gunning down a buncha women and children," Tony rests his head against the back of the seat, "I decided I wanted nothing to do with that, resigned, and became an outlaw." Because a country that orders its citizens to massacre defenseless people is not a country worthy of his respect and obedience.

Loki is silent, maybe regretting having asked at all.

Tony watches him for a moment, and then turns back to the window, resting his hand in his chin.

What would Rhodey think, he wonders, if he learned Tony was planning on sending an innocent man to his death out of greed?

His stomach turns, but he swallows the bile back down.

He’s not sure what his options are, other than turning the kid over. Does he really want to bring Laufey down on his gang? Not that they’ll see it that way, but taking care of them is his responsibility. He’s pretty sure they’ll follow his lead no matter what he says. Real friends are the ones who’ll follow you into hell if it’s where you’re going. Rhodey taught him that.

 

An hour later, Tony is still so lost in his thoughts that he misses it. He’s gonna spend days kicking himself for losing track of his own surroundings so badly that it almost gets people killed.

He should have seen the men sitting in the corner by themselves. Should have noticed how they kept their heads down and backs to the other passengers. Should have seen the tense set of their shoulders that said they were thinking things people taking relaxing train rides didn’t think.

 _Should have_ is always a thing for Tony. It lives in his darkest thoughts, reminds him that he stood there and watched Rogers murder his best friend, that he’s killed people who wanted nothing more than to welcome him and his into their village as friends.

By the time he hears the click of a revolver’s hammer being pulled back, it’s too late to do much about _should have._

“Everybody’s gonna take it nice and easy, and nobody needs to get hurt, y’all hear?” the voice that accompanies the noise has a smooth southern accent, the words come out sounding melodic and almost cultured. The calm, unaffected nature of it sends a chill down Tony’s spine.

There are only four other people in the car with them; the two men from the corner and two older ladies. The ladies look horrified, and Tony worries for a second that one of them is going to genuinely swoon. He thought that went out of style with whalebone corsets, but he supposes they might be old enough for that kind of thing.

One of the men stomps over to the women and shoves his hat in front of them.  He doesn’t say anything, but the implication is there.

Tony can’t lay eyes on the other man, and he’s sure that’s by design. He supposes he’s been designated as the only threat among the pigeons. Too right, too, unless one of those little old ladies secretly knows savate and is going to take down Stompy.

“I’d be much obliged if you ladies would kindly remove your jewels and give them to my friend here,” the smooth voice sounds behind Tony again. “And then we can be off, and leave you in peace.”

With crystal clarity, Tony hears the lie for what it is. Whatever the man is actually planning, it doesn’t involve leaving anyone in peace.

After relieving the women of their valuables, Stompy clomps his way over to where Loki and Tony sit and shoves his hat in their faces. Tony can’t help being a little impressed at the sheer volume of jewelry the women had been wearing. It’s not a bad haul, really.

Belatedly looking up to face his robber, Tony is somewhere between amused and horrified to see him looking Loki over lasciviously. The man jerks his head toward Loki while looking over their heads at his compatriot.

Loki is keeping his head down in what looks like terror of the brigands, but is more likely fear of discovery, or plain old anger. Tony notices his hands clenching in his lap so hard that the knuckles are white. Loki does anger a lot, and with no small amount of skill.

The man with the southern accent chuckles in a way that makes the hairs on the back of Tony’s neck stand up. There’s something dark and ugly there. “It would seem,” he says, “that my friend here would also like some quiet time with your little woman. I don’t think you’d begrudge him that, would you?” He nudges the side of Tony’s head with his gun. It’s a careless gesture, meant to intimidate fools who are already trembling in their boots. Tony would know; he’s used it.

The problem is that it’s also a mistake.

Oh, it would be fine for them if they had more backup, or Tony were some spineless little artist or businessman. But there are only two of them, and Tony isn’t some little city boy, overwhelmed by the big bad men with their big bad guns.

Tony turns his face up to look properly at Stompy, turning his head very subtly to make sure he keeps the contact with Southern Accent's gun. He gives the idiot a bright grin before answering. “Oh, I think you might wanna reconsider that. See, I married me a powerful ugly creature." 1

As Loki’s head starts to whip up, Tony snaps his hand up and grabs the gun next to his head, at the same time slamming the toe of his right boot up into Stompy’s groin. It’s an amateur move, but these two aren’t expecting it, so it works anyway.

Shoving the hand with the gun in it forward, Tony makes sure the barrel is pointed up before twisting sharply to one side. The glimpse of grey coat sleeve he sees as the arm is tugged into view may or may not make him twist a little harder than he’d intended, but it’s not as though he had been planning on being nice to the damned greyback even before that. The wrist in his grip gives a satisfying snap and Southern Accent yelps in pain.

Loki, excellent, clever Loki, has taken Tony’s lead and gone with it. He quite literally punches Stompy in the face and then takes his gun away while the man is still trying to get past the pain of Tony’s boot connecting with his family jewels. Deliberately, he turns the gun in his hand, aims it at Stompy, and pulls back the hammer.

There’s a fraught moment where the two of them look at each other before Stompy declares, somewhat unnecessarily, “That’s not his wife. It’s Loki Aist—!”

Loki shoots him.

The sharp _crack_ of the gunshot leaves the car silent after that, and only the rumbling sound of the moving train and the distant scream of the whistle are audible over the ringing in their ears. Everyone is looking at Loki, including their robbers; it is evident that no one had expected him to shoot, least of all —judging by the slackness of his jaw and the trembling of his hands— Loki himself.

Tony seizes the chance. While Southern Accent is distracted, staring at the growing bloodstain in Stompy's belly and mouthing something, he takes the gun, turns around in his seat, and presses the muzzle to the man's chest. He thinks about it twice —he would prefer not to kill, but the greyback knows who Loki is and Tony really, really wants to be the one to earn Laufey's favor—, but shoots him anyway, right in the heart.

Southern Accent goes limp almost immediately, bleeding all over the seat's upholstery. With Stompy also down for the count, the fight is over. The danger has passed, it has _passed_ , and Tony presses a hand to his chest to try to convince his heart to stop bucking like a bad hoss.

"Sweetheart, are you well?" one of the old ladies says.

Tony's about to answer that yeah, he's fine, when he sees that she was talking to Loki. She's gone to his side and is rubbing his shoulder in a motherly way. Pale-faced and wide-eyed, Loki swallows and blinks hard, and turns his face away from the man agonizing on the floor of the train car and the spreading puddle of blood.

"I... I..." Loki manages. That's when it hits him that he just shot a man, because his gloved hand flies to his mouth and he leans into the woman. "I shot him," he says, voice strangled.

"And good riddance!" the other woman says emphatically, like she's talking about a sheriff kicking a ruffian out of the saloon. "You were very brave, my dear."

Tony would say something to that effect, too, but he hears a second screech of train whistle. What comes out of his mouth is, "Uh, we're nearing the station." It's obvious and dumb, but what else do you say to two people who just watched you murder someone?

The two women look at each other, before nodding together. The one close to Loki smiles beatifically. "Why, it won't do to have you two dears thrown in jail." She stands up, hand reassuringly on Loki's shoulder. "Jocasta...?"

The other woman, apparently named Jocasta, murmurs something under her breath (Tony catches the words _brigand_ and _grandmother's pearls_ ) and then, more loudly, says, "We shall have to get rid of the bodies."

Loki can't seem to look away from the gun in his hands, so between Tony and the two women they mop up the blood as best they can with their robbers' clothes and drag the body and Stompy, still bleeding and therefore still alive, next to the door on one end of the car. Tony fondles his stolen gun and contemplates putting the man out of his misery. He decides against it, in the end: he doesn't like Stompy enough. Bastard was gonna molest his wife.

 

When the train stops, Tony drops the carcasses out onto the side of the rails. The women block the door that leads to the station, giving him enough time, and then walk out to God-knows-where.

Three people get on their car, one of them a station porter carrying luggage. Loki has enough presence of mind to bow his head, letting the bonnet obscure his face. Tony diverts himself briefly by planning an escape in the case that the porter recognizes him anyway, but the efforts aren't needed. The porter leaves a minute or two later.

A few more, and Jocasta and her friend come back and take their seats.

Then the whistle screams and the train starts moving again. If anyone found the reddish stain on the floor strange, no one said anything.

Tony lets out a long breath.

 

The rocks turn into rocks and trees as the train rattles on along the tracks. Loki sits quietly, hands bunching up his skirt. Tony bites his tongue and reaches for his hand, intending to comfort him, but Loki shakes him off. He stares out the window into the middle distance, watching the evergreens go by, and blinks a lot.

"I killed a man," he says after a while, voice strangled and thin. "There was no decision, I just..."

Yeah, Stompy is as good as dead. Even if he survives the blood loss, he'll die of blood poisoning. But Loki... The kid hadn't meant to kill the guy; he'd just been startled while a gun was in his hand and his finger, on the trigger. Rich sheltered boy as he is, he's probably never seen anyone get seriously hurt before, even less likely been the one doing the damage. At most, fisticuffs over a woman or over political ideas.

That's when he remembers that Loki's going to die as soon as Tony gives him to Laufey.

"Don't worry, he’ll live," Tony lies on a whim. Kid shouldn’t waste his last few days of life wallowing in guilt. "He didn't die, yeah? He was only unconscious."

"You think?" Loki asks in a whisper, and the hope in his voice is heartbreaking.

"Mmm-hmm." He pats Loki's knee, and this time he isn't shoved away. "Was still bleeding and everything. We dropped him where someone will see him, yeah? He'll be taken to a physician." He says this with all the confidence in the world. Natasha, the little bunco artist, would be proud.

Loki exhales long and hard, a shiver wracking his body. Relief. His lips curve in the smallest smile, and the tightness around his eyes vanishes as if by magic. "Oh good." He rests his hand over Tony's on his knee. It's still trembling slightly.

Tony turns his hand palm up and laces their fingers together, squeezing reassuringly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1 Lifted from _Firefly_ , episode 3: "Our Mrs Reynolds".


	5. That Dog Won't Hunt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **that dog won't hunt:** that idea or argument isn't going to work

Loki is still rather pale when they get off the train, and the only reason he goes with Tony to fetch the horses instead of staying out of sight is fear of being discovered and not having his bodyguard handy. The second Hurricane walks off the stock car, he plasters himself to her side, burying his hands into her golden mane. She seems equally happy to see him, nickering and rubbing her nose against his cheek.

Tony, meanwhile, greets Peach with a perfunctory pat on the neck, which she seems to neither mind nor care about. For all the nicknames, he's never been particularly affectionate towards her, and she's been reciprocally tepid towards him. This time, though, her lack of acknowledgment feel like a rebuke, though it might just be the guilt talking.

He carefully avoids watching Loki and his horse reunite, but then a good three minutes go by and he gets to the end of his patience. He clears his throat. "So."

Loki raises his head. The skin around his red-rimmed eyes is puffy and his eyelashes are clumped together wetly. Dressed in black as he is, he wouldn't be out of place in a funeral. His eyes look very green like this.

Right. Tony swallows and decides to ignore that last thought. "Well," he says, "remember my gang?"

"Yes. The 'Avengers', was it?" Loki replies, still standing too close to Hurricane, his shoulders hunched. Maybe it's less that he's happy to see her, Tony thinks, and more that he needs the comfort. He'd thought that holding Tony’s hand for the last hours of the journey would suffice, but apparently not.

"Yeah, them," Tony says belatedly. "It so happens that some of them live here." _If they aren't running for their lives or in Laufey's hands,_ he thinks guiltily _._ "We should meet up with them as soon as we can, see if there’s any news.”

“Do you think they might have heard something?” Loki asks, his tone conveying incredulity. His hand relaxes in Hurricane's mane.

Tony shrugs. “Only one way to find out, right? Let’s find ourselves a room for tonight, and then I can head over to the clinic.” Receiving a confused tilt of the head, he explains, "Bruce is a physician."

Loki looks impressed despite himself at that. "It is good to know that not _all_ of you are barely literate army rejects." He tries to keep a poker face, but the corners of his eyes crinkle.

Tony doesn't dignify that with an answer.

 

Tony leads Loki and the horses through familiar streets. Soon, his favorite local inn comes into sight in all its bare-bricked, white-fenced-balcony glory. It's small when compared to the surrounding buildings, as it was built back in the early gold rush days when three stories were unthinkable, and the sign over the front reading "Miner's Rest" is chipping, so not many people patronize it. Everyone who does is either shady or down on their luck; either way, the guests know better than to go blabbing around town about newcomers. The owner also makes the best stew Tony's ever had.

It's the next best thing to home.

They stable the horses and step inside, rubbing their numb hands to warm them. Mae, beautiful dark-skinned Mae, is right there at the front desk, looking bored out of her mind. She's short and barrel-shaped, and her belly sticks out a over the waistband of the cowgirl pants she never entirely outgrew.

She smiles like the midday sun when she spots Tony. "Well, well, look what the cat dragged in!" She stands up and walks quickly around the counter, coming to greet him with open arms.

"Mae, light of my life!" Tony declares, catching her and twirling her around. "Tell me you have some of that stew of yours!" he says, staring soulfully into her eyes. "I've thought of nothing else since Nevada!"

She slaps his hands away playfully. "Well, that depends," she drawls. "Are you gonna pay your tab?"

Tony flushes. He thinks back, trying to remember if he really did skip out on a bill and wondering if Mae is just joking. He looks wordlessly at Loki. "Um."

Following his eyes, Mae turns and notices 'her' for the first time. She gasps. "Boy! Don't tell me you got married!" She drops Tony like a hot potato and goes over to Loki, looking pinching his cheek. "Well, arentcha a beauty! Is Tony here treating you well?"

Wide-eyed, Loki nods. He looks too wrongfooted to fib his way out of this one.

Mae opens her mouth like an eagle about to swoop down on a snake, and Tony has the premonition that she's going to find out the whole story unless he intervenes. "Listen, Mae," he cuts in, "I'd love to chat but the little lady and I would very much appreciate somewhere to hang our hats."

She closes her mouth with a pout. "Sure, sonny, sure. Will you be wanting a bath, too? Dinner?"

Once glance at Loki's longing face tells Tony everything he needs to know about his opinion on the matter. "Yes, please. Can we have fresh water?"

Arching an eyebrow, Mae glances quickly at Loki before smirking knowingly. "Will cost you extra, Tony."

Tony winces. He has no idea how much of Loki's bankroll is left, but he's pretty certain he should start cutting back on costs. "Alright, you buzzard." He shakes his head, clicking his tongue at her.

They make the necessary arrangements, haggle a bit for sport, and Tony pays with Loki's money. As they go up the stairs to his usual room, Tony spots Mae's youngest son, now almost as tall as his hips.

"Junior!" he calls, "got time for a little errand?"

Jacob Jr. turns around. He has the same blinding smile as his mother, except he's missing his top front teeth. "Sure thing, mister Tony!" he exclaims, tugging his left suspender back onto his shoulder. "Whaddaya need?"

"You remember Doctor Banner?" He waits for the kid to nod. "Fetch him for me, please? He should be in his clinic. Tell him it's urgent."

Loki watches the boy go and turns to Tony. "Doctor Banner is Bruce, I presume?" he says, speaking for the first time in twenty minutes.

"Yup. You'll get to meet him soon. Come on." He nods towards their room. "This place has a real bathtub."

The tightness that has been haunting Loki's eyes since he shot Stompy disappears as if by magic, and his entire face lights up.

 

* * *

 

"Tony, I'm not gonna tell you again, you can't keep calling me whenever you have a rash," is the first thing that comes out of Bruce's mouth when he steps into Tony's room. The hot water for the bath isn't even ready yet; Bruce must have come running as soon as he got his note.

Loki, bonnet off and hair loose, snorts a little _pft_ and hides his lower face behind a hand.

"Oh, Bruce, you’re cruel," Tony complains, grinning at his friend.  "You wound me, you really do." He stands up from his chair and goes to greet him, offering his hand.

Bruce shakes his head, touched with distinguished silver at the temples, and hugs him close instead. "I thought you were a goner," he murmurs shakily.

They stand in the embrace for a long moment, Tony allowing his friend to reassure himself that they’re both there and alive. “Takes more than a silly thing like a couple of guys with guns to do me in, buddy. You’re not gonna get rid of me for a long while yet.”

Bruce smacks Tony’s shoulder lightly as he pulls away, frowning at him. “That’s easy for you to say. You’re not the one who has to sit back here and wonder if everyone’s coming back this ti—” he breaks off mid-sentence when he finally notices Loki sitting half-undressed on one side of the room. “Um. Hello?”

“Oh!” Tony grins at him. “I almost forgot, Bruce, this is—”

“So help me God,” Loki interrupts with a venomous glare, “if you call me ‘the little woman’ again, I shall strike you.”

Stunned, Bruce mouths out ‘the little woman’, and Tony just bursts into somewhat inappropriate laughter. “This is Loki,” he says after a minute. “The package we’re taking to San Francisco.”

Bruce blinks for a moment, but makes no comment on the dress, Loki’s voice, or the statement, which Tony suspects says something about the way the gang lives. “I guess I can see why the mail wouldn’t do,” Bruce says amiably. “It’s nice to meet you, Loki. I’m Bruce. Saved this idiot's life once, now I'm stuck with him."

Obviously, it’s Loki’s turn to laugh. It's good to hear him like this; he has a good laugh.

Introductions made, Tony realizes it’s probably time to explain the whole mess. But then someone knocks on the door: Mae, coming to tell them the water is ready.

Loki jumps to his feet, remembers he'd started undressing, and quickly slides the top of the dress back on over his chemise. He adjusts his fake bosoms and nods to Tony.

Tony opens the door and lets Mae know they heard her. "Sorry, Bruce," he says to his friend. "I didn't know you'd be coming so fast. I'm to help with the bath and then we—"

"No!" Loki exclaims, holding up a hand. "No, its is all right. You two should… talk, or whatever it is you need to do."

Instead of questioning, Tony just says, "Sure. We'll be downstairs if you want us."

"At the bar, no doubt." Loki grins playfully. "I'll come for you when I'm done." Which means, Tony has no doubt, ' _Get out and leave me in peace'._

"Sure. Bruce, you coming? I owe you a beer."

“Or five," Bruce agrees. "It was nice to meet you, Loki. I’m sure we’ll see more of each other when you’ve had a chance to settle in.”

Tony pulls him out of the room by the shoulder, throwing Loki a grin as he goes. “Enjoy your bath, sugarplum!” He doesn’t miss the tired sigh Loki gives at that, but figures that not getting yelled at, or having anything thrown at him, is a win.

He feels odd leaving Loki behind, seeing how they've been attached at the hip for the past two weeks, but he supposes he’ll get used to it again pretty quick, one way or the other.

 

The table furthest from the door and windows is taken, so they pick one in the opposite corner, far from any ears that might be bent in their direction. Mae brings them both a mug of beer and then makes herself scarce—she’s had them in her place enough times to know when they’re talking business that she doesn’t want to hear.

“So,” Bruce says after taking a long drink. “You made it out in one piece and you picked up work on the way back?”

Tony chuckles. “It’s crazy, Bruce. Makes no damn sense. There I was, middle of the desert, no horse, no food, and hardly any ammo, and suddenly there he is. Exactly what I needed.” Like the Lord himself had delivered Loki to him. He remembers having thought that at the time. Except...

At this, Bruce raises an eyebrow. “You sound uncertain.”

Tony slumps back in his chair and doesn’t answer for a long time. He takes a few sips and tries to decide how to explain the whole mess. How he’s got the perfect mark, the thing that could make their lives easy, and how he’s having second thoughts. And third ones. He drinks another mouthful of the swill Mae calls beer. "Where's the rest of the gang?"

Bruce grimaces. His eyes slide off to the side, away from Tony's gaze.

Insides turning to water, Tony puts his mug down, leans on the table on his forearms and asks again, sharper and colder: "Bruce, where's Clint and Natasha?"

His friend sighs. "Laufey's guys took them two days ago." Somehow, his next words manage to reach Tony over the sound of the blood rushing in his ears. "He found us out somehow, Tony. S'been after us ever since that God-damned train job."

For the first time, Tony notices the dark circles under his eyes. He looks as wretched as Tony feels. "Well, shit," he spits out, before biting his knuckles hard. His vision turns blurry with tears. He blinks them away, but more come, and he can't seem to unclench his jaw.

They both remain silent a while, and then Bruce whispers, "What are we going to do, Tony?"

 

Tony swallows hard.  He'd been fighting an agonizing battle with his conscience for the past month and a half, trying to pick between being a good christian who does the right thing and being good leader who protects his gang at all costs. He'd come into the Miner's Rest hoping to find his comrades all safe and sound, hoping he could just help Loki get to 'Frisco and wash his hands off the whole mess. But now...

"She's not actually a woman," he says suddenly.

Bruce lifts his head, looking haunted for a moment before he can get his face back under control. "Huh?"

“The woman I brought with me, who is currently upstairs taking a bath,” Tony clarifies. He sighs and lets his shoulders slump. He lowers his voice to a near whisper as he continues. “He's Loki Aistrom.”

A sharp intake of breath comes from across the table. “The one Laufey’s looking for?”

Tony nods. “Yeah," he says sardonically, "like there’d be anyone else with a name like that.” Eyeing the dregs of his beer, he adds, "like I said, he was exactly what I needed." When he raises his gaze again, he finds Bruce turned to stone.

He's struggling too, just as much as Tony has been all this time. After a long silence, he swallows hard. "No. Forget it."

"Bruce, it would fix _everything_."

"No!" His friend is starting to grow red in the face. "Tony, he looks at you like you lassoed the moon."

Tony winces, remembering every time Loki stood up and smiled when Tony came back from a foray into town. Remembering the wide open, hopeful way in which he sought his praise whenever he managed to shoot whatever they've been using as a target that day. Remembering the green eyes watching him through the clumps of wet hair when Tony helped him bathe... 

“Laufey will give us Clint and Nat back if we turn him in,” he says, begging Bruce to understand. It's a horrible thing to do, yes, and he won't shy away from it. “Any trouble we have with him would be done, and we’d part ways cleanly."

Bruce looks appropriately conflicted. Which is worrying in itself: since Rhodey died, Bruce has become his moral compass, keeping him pointing more or less towards God, or at least drawing the line where one inch further would be _too much_.

"Just sell this guy out," Tony throws in, "a guy you don't even _know_ , mind you, and we get our friends back, and we get to rob another train in another line." It's not fair to lay it all on his friend, but Tony has gone over these same reasonings a thousand times both ways and he still hasn't been able to decide.

Face beet-purple and eyes screwed shut —just as he always does when he's forcing himself _not_ to go absolutely nuts—, Bruce mutters, " Primum non nocere, primum non nocere," until his heavy breathing subsides. "No, Tony," he says at last, unclenching his jaw. "The one thing you can't trade for your heart's desire is your heart." 2

Tony flinches back as if he'd been kicked. "Way to go below the belt, buddy." He bites his lip and stares at the far wall.

That's what Rhodey had said, right before lowering his rifle and standing in front of two indian children, shielding them from the rest of his squad. He'd been fed up to the back teeth with buying "progress" and "peace" with the lives of the people he's supposed to be fighting for. He'd given himself to fight against it and had, in turn, forced Steve to chose between murder and treason, and left Tony with a hole in his soul that had never fully scarred over.

But Tony can't afford the luxury of a clean conscience.

"Sorry, Brucie," he sighs. "I'm pulling rank." He can't look at his friend —if he can still call him that—; he knows what he'll find: nothing but hate and disgust. If he goes through with his original plan, he'll lose Bruce as a friend, but he'll be alive. Nat and Clint will be alive. And they'd be free of Laufey for a good long while.

If selling his soul to the Devil is what it takes to save his family... He'll do it.

 

By the time he and Bruce finish arguing and Tony goes back to his and Loki's room, Loki is done getting dressed. He's sitting on the edge of the bed, dressed in a clean shirt and combing his wet hair when Tony comes in. As soon as he hears the door, he turns to look over his shoulder. "The water is still warm if you want to—"

"I don't," Tony interrupts curtly. He drops down on the edge of the bed and bends down to struggle out of his boots. A faint lavender scent floats towards him from Loki's direction.

Loki huffs and points at him with the comb. "If you think I'm sharing a bed with you smelling like this—"

"Cowboy the hell up, Loki," Tony growls. Finally managing to get the second boot off, he hurls it against the wall.

His travelling companion is unimpressed. "Friend not as friendly as you remember?" he asks callously, turning his back on Tony to continue his attempts at unknotting hair. The comb seems to be winning, but only barely.

How come Loki can read him like a book, when they've only known each other for less than two months! "Yeah, you could say that." He glares down at his socks. The left one has a hole at the tip, and his big toe is poking out. He shouldn't take his anger out on Loki, not when he's going to deliver him to his family's murderer in two days. He sighs and turns around, climbing onto the bed entirely and settling behind Loki. "Let me," he says, stopping Loki's hand with a touch.

Loki lets him have the comb easily enough, and rests his hands down on his lap. His shoulders are hunched, and it may or may not be from the cold. Tony runs the comb through his hair in sections, like he does —used to do?— with Natasha after her baths. It had never ceased to amaze him that a woman so maltreated by men could let him anywhere near her neck with a pointy object; it amazes him now, too, when Loki just turns his head to the side to give him more room and ends up baring his neck.

Then something occurs to him. Loki _must_ have some sort of plan. _Maybe it won't be necessary_ , he thinks, a tiny bud of hope blooming in his chest, _to hand Loki over to Laufey._ "Hey, so, what are you planning on doing when you get to San Fran?"

But Loki shakes his head. "I don't know." He lets out a half-laugh half-sob. "I never thought I'd get this far— _ow,_ stop pulling—"

Tony lets go of the hair he'd reflexively made a fist around, and instead grabs Loki's shoulder and turns him around. "You were just gonna waltz in and, what, Laufey says 'Sorry, my bad' and drops dead?" he gapes. He can't believe this. This cannot be happening. Loki cannot possibly be _this_ stupid. "He's not gonna hand back the family fortune just because you ask nicely! What did you think was gonna happen?"

"I don't know!" Loki shouts, jerking away from the hand and standing up. He whirls around on the ball of his foot and faces Tony. "I. Don't. Know. What can I do?" he asks raggedly, and tears start filling his eyes. "I have nothing. Everyone who cared about me is dead." He blinks the water out of his eyes. It trails down his cheeks. "I’m swiftly running out of money. Laufey has the police on his payroll. I don't know if I can even trust my family lawyer. Can't you see?" He swipes at his face with his sleeve. "I have _no one_."

Tony follows him and says, "You have me," before he can think about it twice. He wants to hit himself afterwards, but he's already standing next to a crying Loki and gathering him into his arms. "You have me." He kisses Loki's jaw, which is the highest he can reach like this—he'd been aiming for his temple, but Loki's just too all-fired _tall._

Tony can't even _comfort_ him right.

But soon he feels spots of warmth at his sides, followed by the tightening of his vest, and he doesn't need to look to know that Loki's clinging to him for dear life. The kid sobs a couple more times in his ear, wet and raspy, and then lets out a huge breath of air and pulls away. "You stink," he says, turning his face away to breath in relatively fresh air. "Go bathe."

Tony grins. "Well, ' _scuse_ me, Princess," he says cheerfully, as though Loki hadn't just bared his heart and soul to him, "I ain't nothin' but humble workin' man." He sees Loki's lips twitch and counts himself a winner.

"A _smelly_ working man," Loki corrects. His eyes are still pink, but at least the tear tracks on his face have dried. "I mean it. Bathe." He touches the side of his neck where Tony had kissed him —there is an irritated red splotch on his milk white skin— and blushes slightly. "And shave, too. You are shaggy."

Fair enough. Tony bows graciously and goes to look for cleaner clothes and his razor.

 

When he gets out of the tub, the water is very nearly mud. Mentally apologizing to whatever poor sop gets to use this water after him, he gets out and quickly dries and dresses himself to escape the chill. He feels much better after the bath. And when he turns towards the mirror and sees the state of his beard, he has to admit that Loki was right about him. Tony's starting to look like a bum. Annoyed, he shaves his cheeks as usual and trims the rest, taking care to keep the shape as he likes it.

His soul might not be presentable, but at least his body is.

And with that cheerful thought, he returns to his room, only to find Jacob Jr. struggling to keep a tray upright. He runs towards him and takes the tray from him.

"Thank ya, mister Tony!" the kid exclaims. "Peskily heavy, that tray is." He runs down the short hallway —assuming Tony's going to carry the tray everywhere, apparently— and stops by Tony's room. He opens the door and covers his eyes like Loki might be naked in there or something.

Grinning, Tony takes the tray inside, fetches a penny from his money bag and gives it to the kid. Jacob Jr. goes away after a loud "Thank you, mister Tony!", and he shuts the door.

"Do my eyes deceive me?" Loki asks as soon as he's gone. "Food, at last?"

Tony laughs. "Come on. We haven't been here that long."

Loki gives him a flat look. "Tell that to my belly." He breaks a piece off a freshly baked loaf and dips it in the soup. When he brings it to his mouth, some of the soup dribbles down his fingers, and he licks them absentmindedly. The lack of self-consciousness is endearing, but also a bad sign. Loki must be really hungry. Or worried.

God, but handing him to Laufey's going to be so hard...

Too disgusted with himself to feel hungry, he has to force himself to eat. Mae's strew is, as always, delicious, and eating it is no chore. He can't stop himself from glancing at Loki every two seconds, though. He's subdued, but obviously joyful and appreciative of the meal.

And Tony's going to shatter that tomorrow.

 

They finish eating, put the tray on the floor outside the room, and turn in early. They have a train to catch in the morning, after all.

Loki falls asleep easily. With the day they've had, Tony isn't surprised. Tony himself lies awake for a long time, watching the darkness above him. He starts to drift off at one point, but Loki rolls over in his sleep and curls up, pressing his face into Tony's shoulder, and Tony starts crying.

_O Lord, forgive me for what I'm about to do._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 2 Lifted from _Memory_ by Lois McMaster Bujold.


	6. Above Snakes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **above snakes:** above ground - still alive.

When Tony arrives at the address Laufey picked for the meeting, he thinks he shouldn’t be surprised by anything he does at this point. The burnt out shell of the Aistrom estate just outside of San Francisco is for all intents and purposes a storybook villain’s choice, but he can't deny how convenient it is: it's big, it's empty, it's far from neighbors and, best of all, it's dangerous enough that neither party will find it easy to make a move. Laufey may be an utter black hat, but he's not stupid. No one that got as far as he has can be.

Loki pauses for a long moment when faced with the ruins of his childhood home and, honestly, Tony feels like enough of an ass about what’s going down that he doesn’t want to make it worse. Of course, given that he's currently pressing his gun into Loki’s spine, and that he tied his arms at the wrist and forced a gag between his lips before coming, Tony’s not sure how, exactly, he could make it much worse.

Rhodey’s voice keeps trying to drift up into his consciousness —something about honor and duty not being incompatible with each other if one's a good man—, and Tony pushes it down as hard as he can. Nat and Clint are in danger. Rhodey gave his life to protect Clint and his people, and Tony promised Nat she'd never be left behind or bartered away. A man has responsibilities; he’ll get them back alive and well, no matter what it costs him.

He nudges Loki gently with the gun. “In you go. We’ve got an appointment with a man about my friends.”

Loki only needs a bit of prodding but, if the sound from behind his gag is any indication, he’s not impressed with Tony or his meeting. In fact, the tone sort of implies that Loki has greatly broadened his vocabulary since their first meeting.

“Why, Loki, you saucy devil," Tony grins unapologetically. "I didn’t know you knew any doxies. You shouldn’t talk like that about my sister, though. I don’t even have a sister.”

At that, Loki shoots a glare back over his shoulder and scowls at Tony, sending some more muffled choice words at him. Tony just smiles and pushes forward. His heart is racing and his stomach has decided to try digesting itself. He wants to get in, do the thing, and then get out; he's scared shitless that Laufey will shoot him anyway.

For a second, Loki’s eyes focus behind Tony, then flit back to land meaningfully on his once again. The muffled speech is softer this time, just two short words that can’t be made out, but Tony knows what they mean. Two words.

Forcing himself to pay them no mind, Tony nods toward the house again. “Inside you go, I said. The doc’s waiting for me to get back at two sharp.” He pushes Loki. He stumbles over some debris, but Tony catches him. "Don't make this any harder than it needs to be."

Loki looks into his eyes for a long while, before letting his head hang and walking, at last. The two of them continue into the burned out husk, stepping carefully to avoid any unstable ground. The last thing Tony needs is to fall and sprain an ankle when he might need to run for his life.

It only takes a few fleeting moments for them to find Laufey and his guard, just the one, waiting in what must have been a parlor at some point, if the ruins of the chandelier are any indication. Laufey is reed thin and tall, taller than even Loki. His black hair is slicked back, his mustache perfectly trimmed. He's not holding a gun in his hand, though Tony thinks he sees a tell-tale bulge in his clothes under his right arm that means he's heeled. His guard looks like any coal-shoveller from any train ever: thickly muscled, sooty skin, watery eyes. Except that instead of a shovel, Laufey's outfitted him with a six-shooter.

Clint and Nat are tied to a couple burnt armchairs, or the skeletons of them. Clint is dressed in a coat that very nearly swallows him up, and who knew murderers like Laufey would care about keeping his hostages warm? He's a mess, though. Even in the shade of the building he can see that half of his face is bruised purple, his eye swollen shut. Natasha is probably in the same way, except less visibly. So far, Tony can only see a torn-up dress, a split lip and a ring of hand-shaped bruises around her neck. Tony feels burning, furious heat coming up under his collar. He's gonna _end_ Laufey.

Clint nods when he notices Tony looking at him, acknowledging, and flips up his index finger and thumb from where his hands are bound to the chair arm. Tony's brow wrinkles slightly: the thumb isn’t part of any hand signal. The index finger means he’s not seriously injured but not in fighting shape, and the thumb… oh. The thumb is broken. Not a signal so much as explanation. Clint won’t be firing any arrows for a while.

When he turns his eyes towards Natasha, he sees that she has all of her fingers extended. She’s tapping on the armrest, something that could be construed as a nervous tic, especially in someone as constantly underestimated as Natasha. Four taps: she’s fine and ready for a fight. And she’s almost freed herself from her bonds already. _Oh, Nat_ , Tony thinks to himself, _you are the one person I want at my back in every fight_. He brought a couple of knives with him exclusively for her use.

“Alright,” Tony drawls. “You have my people, just like you said. And they’re alive, just like you said.” He shoves Loki in front of him, drawing Laufey's eyes to his captive. _And I've got Loki, just like I said_.

Laufey gives him what he thinks is supposed to be a grin, but comes off more like a giant cat just about to take a bite out of someone. “True. And I suppose you want them back, pitiful though they are?" He glances contemptuously at them. "I'm told they barely even put up a fight.”

Tony snorts, because yeah, _right_. Natasha killed her husband and his friends when he tried to whore her out, and Clint has saved their bacon from the fire more times than he can count. “It's hardly fair to expect them to fight when four guys sneak up of them in the middle of the night.”

“Oh, Mr. Stark,” Laufey chides, grinning, sunlight gleaming of his gold tooth. “I would think that your stint in the army taught you how few things in life are fair.”

“Really?” Tony asks in return, raising an eyebrow. “Cause all I remember learning is that some people don’t deserve the air they breathe." Like Captain Walker. Or Steven Rogers. "And that there are more bullies, who go around killing people to further their own goals, than decent people in this world.”

From the corner of his eye, he sees Natasha’s and Clint's surprised expressions. It’s fair. He doesn’t talk about the army much, and he talks about morals even less often, since it's a subject he's not very wise on. Natasha's helped him wind down after a nightmare once, and Clint was there, but they've never really _talked_ about it.

Laufey just laughs. “Oh, _my_. How fascinating." His voice drips with scorn. "A bandit, giving me lessons in morality. How many trains have you robbed, Stark? And how much money do you need, truly? Because it seems to me that, if you just went back to New York and did a little brownnosing, you could have all you needed, neat and legal. You choose this life.”

Ouch. Bringing up Tony’s father is low, even for scum like Laufey. Also, how the _blazes_ did he find out? “As much as I’m sure you love it from the receiving end, brownnosing requires its own kind of morality," he draws that word out venomously, _moh-ral-li-tee_. "One in which I’m, sadly, lacking." _And you aren't, you two-faced, treacherous rattlesnake._ He smiles congenially. "Now, are we here to chat about philosophy or to trade hostages?”

Laufey’s grin grows to leonine proportions. It's even more unsettling, and Tony would have bet money just a moment earlier that such a thing wasn’t possible. “Well, then," he says softly, "why don’t we exchange hostages?”

“You’re not just gonna _shoot_ him, are ya?” Tony asks, a tiny bit worried that Laufey’s just going to start putting holes in everyone fool enough to show up for the damned meeting.

Laufey's subsequent laugh is charming, and Tony can definitely see how this man became this powerful. “Now, why would I do that, after all the trouble I’ve gone through to obtain him?" His eyes, pale green, come to rest on Loki. There is a hunger in them. "Do send him over now.” He motions his hired muscle towards them, expectantly.

For just a second, Tony doesn’t think he can follow through. Plan or no plan, he doesn’t want to put Loki anywhere near the monster who murdered his family. Laufey is one of the worst examples of humanity Tony has ever had the misfortune of meeting, and he doesn’t want to force anyone into the bastard’s presence. Loki, scared, takes a half step back onto Tony’s shoe, though, and that draws him out of his head.

It’s time. He's made his choices. Now he's gotta follow through.

He gives Loki a little push and immediately goes to where Clint is tied up, flipping out a knife and dropping to his knees in one smooth action. He throws the second one to Natasha, who can get herself free easily enough. Tony has faith that she can do it in time to get the hell out before anyone starts shooting. Also, upon further inspection of Clint's arm, to get Clint out as well: the kid's not half as well as he’d implied with his signals. His right forearm is swollen, probably broken, and he won't able to shoot properly.

"I'm sorry, Clint, I'm so sorry," he whispers, sawing at the ropes.

"It's cool, Boss," Clint replies, "I knew what I was getting into."

The ropes around Clint's left arm snap loose, and he moves towards towards the feet. In the intervening silence, he becomes aware that someone is talking. It's Laufey, sounding oddly earnest.

“I swear to you, my boy,” Laufey says, and the nickname rings heartfelt.

And here Tony hadn’t thought Laufey had a heart, but lo and behold: he's even removed Loki's gag. He gives his knife to Clint so he can cut the ropes around his broken arm and takes out another one to work on freeing his feet. He never once stops paying attention to what Laufey's saying.

"And is it any surprise that Odin treated you as less than a second son?" Laufey's murmuring, his voice soft and melodic. "Practically a leper in your own family, were you not? I tell you, it is because he stole you from me.”

Odin. Stole. Loki. From. Laufey.

Tony feels his blood freeze in his veins and turns around to look at them. Now that he's searching for it, he sees the resemblance. The hair color, the cheekbones, the hairline. The height. The slender build. He checks to compare eye color and he finds Loki staring at him.

Laufey is still talking, the words pouring out of his mouth like water from a fountain. “And this pathetic bandit and his gang think they can sell my son? To me? They’ll never leave this place alive, I promise you that.”

Meanwhile, Tony and Loki seem to be having a more effective conversation with just their facial expressions than they’ve ever before had with words.

Tony’s eyebrows shoot to his hairline— _did you know about this?_

Loki’s lips purse in annoyance and his brows drawn down low— _of course I didn’t you idiot._

Tony bites his lip, letting his brows fall into a look of concentration, and glances around the room nervously— _well then what do we do now?_

“What the hell is this?” Laufey asks, his tone hard, looking between them.

Shit. Busted.

There’s a loud thump, and Loki takes a deep breath and looks pointedly at something on the ground. Tony follows his eyes and sees Loki's gun there, on the floor. Laufey must have divested Loki of it.

“You’re working with this son of a cock-loving whore?” Laufey accuses, eyes wild, and goes for his gun.

Whatever Loki does, Tony knows he won't be fast enough and… that’s it for Tony. Loki is an Avenger now. Maybe more than an Avenger. He throws himself at Laufey without even considering the consequences. He won’t be able to get his gun own out and shoot before Laufey, but he can get himself between the two of them in time.

He hits Laufey with all his body weight, and they crash against the wall, shaking a cloud of ash and soot loose. It creaks ominously for a moment and threatens to buckle, but holds. Unfortunately, Laufey regains his equilibrium first, and presses his gun against Tony’s temple. And Tony's Peacemaker is sitting uselessly in its holster all the while.

At least Laufey's pointing at _Tony_ instead of Loki. Thank God for small mercies.

Natasha is in the middle of a one-sided knife fight with the minion. She has a knife, which automatically means she'll win. She appears to have knocked the man's gun away and towards Clint, who is now slumped down next to the chair he was in, gun in hand and looking tired but mentally present. Loki rises slowly from his crouch—and in his hand is his old gun, mother-of-pearl handle and gilded muzzle gleaming in all their useless glory.

They all stop moving. No one wants to be the person who gets shot accidentally.

“My own flesh and blood,” Laufey spits, and flecks of saliva fly everywhere. “Fallen in with some pathetic train robber! I offer you a kingdom! We could own the entire west coast!" He looks beseechingly at his son. "Would you really choose this creature over your own family? Over your blood?”

It isn’t hard to see the uncertainty in Loki’s eyes. Tony feels a blissful serenity come over him in that moment, and it seems at odds with the situation. He’s about eighty percent sure he’s gonna die, but it’s not for the reason Laufey thinks. Loki isn’t going to kill Tony. Laufey thinks he can draw Loki in with talk of family, but Laufey hasn’t been travelling with Loki, hasn’t seen the haunted look in his eyes, hasn’t heard the nightmares. Talking about family doesn’t give Loki hope for a future with his father, especially not in this of all places.

Tony is sure he’s going to die, yes, and it’s gonna be his own damned fault. He's the one who insisted on getting Loki a proper gun, the one that kept worrying about wasting ammunition instead of just teaching Loki to shoot. He was the one that walked into this confrontation knowing that it takes Loki entire minutes to line up a shot and that his aim isn’t the best—heck, he's only ever managed to hit the can four times out of ten, and that's with the _reliably accurate_ gun.

Still, they have one chance to win this. One shot, before Laufey figures out that he should just kill Tony and then Loki too.

One shot.

Loki’s shot.

Tony closes his eyes and prays.

The thunder of a gunshot rings out, and time seems to resume its earlier speed, maybe even picking up some to catch up. Tony waits for Laufey’s return fire, likely to start with Tony’s own damned cranium. He feels the cold metal barrel slide against his temple and his whole body tenses.

But then the gun slides further down, trailing along the side of his face like Death's caress, then down his chest until it falls from Laufey’s slack fingers. It's the clatter of the landing that makes Tony open his eyes. Turning, he finds Laufey’s face a perfect mask of surprise, mouth gaping open and dull eyes round, the expression marred by a single line of blood slipping down his nose from the hole between his eyes. And a splatter of blood and gory chunks on the wall behind him.

Laufey's body slumps against him, held up by Tony pressing him against the wall. Disturbed, Tony steps away, and it topples oven with a sickening _thump_.

Dead. Stone cold dead.

Tony looks at Loki, worried for his partner's sanity after having killed two people in as many weeks. Loki looks surprised, but not nearly as devastated as he had after shooting Stompy. Instead, there’s a hesitant sort of… satisfaction around him as he lowers the gun. He gazes at it lovingly and murmurs, "Thank you, Mother."

That, Tony can totally understand. He pulls himself away from Laufey’s body and walks over to where Nat is helping Clint up. She had knocked the thug out right after the shot that killed Laufey, and now she’s looking up at Tony.

"Ой, котенок. Где ты был?" she greets him, face expressionless but tone warm. She stands close, but doesn't touch him.

Hearing the language she taught him, the one that no one else seems to know, makes something unknot inside of Tony. Those are the very same words he said to her when they first met. She had fleeced Clint of all he was worth at cards, and he had recruited her on the spot. Upon seeing the slip of a girl, riddled with lice and dressed in rags, he'd asked, _Oh, kitten, where have you been?_ , and she'd replied, _Here and there_.

She's good. She's safe. Smiling softly, Tony replies, echoing her words, "Я был здесь и там..."

The corners of her lips twitch up. She puts a hand on his shoulder, lets its weight reassure him.

Clint, still sitting on the floor, asks, "You teach the kid to shoot, Tony? Not too many people with aim that good.”

Tony grins. “Of course I did!”

Loki finally tucks his jewel of a gun back into his pocket and gives Tony a sardonic look before turning his head to Clint. “Of course,” he deadpans. “He taught me everything I know.”

This, oddly enough, is when all hell breaks loose. Half a dozen cops come pouring into the ruins of the Aistrom estate like a plague of blue-uniformed locusts that have somehow shown up too late for the harvest. Following them are Bruce and, who else could it be, Steven Fucking Rogers, dressed in his blue uniform.

“I told you we didn’t need _him_ , B,” Tony spits, but there’s surprisingly little anger behind it. It isn’t that he’s changed his mind so much as that he’s exhausted, and Rogers is no longer a part of his world. Hasn't been for many years. Hating him, really hating him, just isn’t worth the effort it takes.

“You did,” Bruce agrees easily, cupping the back of his neck shyly. “And I ignored that. It looks like it turned out fine, sure, but if it hadn’t, I wanted you to have backup.”

At least Rogers has the good sense to leave Tony well alone and not even attempt to shake his hand. He and his lackeys go about cleaning up, identifying the bodies and having them removed from Loki’s property. Rogers apologizes to Loki for not having been able to stop Laufey earlier and pays lip-service to his family, but Tony is pretty sure Loki’s not hearing it.

In fact, Loki seems to be getting worse, pale and drawn and hands shaky. Just almost died, just killed a man, and still trapped in a room where a member of his family might have died? It isn’t really the way anyone wants to spend their day.

Tony walks to his side and slides an arm around Loki’s midsection. “What do you say we get out of here, Billy-boy?”

Loki rolls his eyes and sighs exasperatedly, but then gives Tony a smile. It’s the barest upward curve of his lips, but it’s a start. And now, without Laufey hanging over their heads, it looks like he’ll be around to see more of that.

For the first time since Rhodey’s death, Tony feels like he’s really _won_ something. The good guys saved the day, the bad guys died, and Tony finished the job he got hired to do—all without having to compromise what few morals he has left.

 

* * *

 

After some long and exhausting hours of being there for Loki while his lawyer droned on and on about his parent's will, Laufey's will, and how to go about proving Loki's his son so Loki could inherit both railroad companies. Tony finally gets to sit down, alone, and breathe.

The room is almost obscenely opulent: a plush bed with a real spring mattress, mahogany paneling on the walls, electric lighting, velvet cushions, a water closet that flushes... Tony lies down on the bed and lets out a huge breath. His back aches, and he can still feel the cold ring of the gun's muzzle against his skin when he closes his eyes. He's so tired, and there hasn't even been a gunfight. What does that say about him? Is he getting too old?

"Tony?" Loki calls as he enters the room.

He sits up with a start. He hadn't even heard the door opening. He turns towards Loki and sees that he's dressed in the clothes he was wearing when they first met: a three piece suit, a silk kerchief, flat shoes. They are wrinkled and stained, but Loki didn't care when he put them on. He said he'd rather look like a poor man than a bum beating the road. It's a bit nostalgic. Actually, now that Tony thinks about it, Loki now looks just as miserable as Loki then. Maybe more haunted.

"Everything alright?" he asks, scratching his head idly. "What did Rogers want?"

Loki shrugs one shoulder. "Alright enough, I suppose," he sighs. "He wanted to reassure me that the police would do everything in their power to help me, et cetera." He smirks lazily. "He wanted me to let you know that he has changed since you last met and to ask you to talk to him so he can apologize."

Everything he said about hating Rogers being too much work? Retracted. "That asshole." Tony scowls. "All that happened to you and he is _using—_ " he cuts himself off and blows a raspberry. "There's nothing to talk about."

Loki laughs and joins him on the bed. "I told him that, but somehow he didn't believe me."

"I'm not surprised. Steven was seldom the kind of man to look further than his own nose." Tony snorts. "Stubborn bastard. Picked a direction and charged like a freight train." A lithe, delicate-looking hand steals one of his own and squeezes it gently, and Tony looks at him. "How come you’re comforting _me_? Shouldn't it be the other way around?"

"Taking care of me is not your job any more." Loki's thumb strokes the back of Tony's fingers. "Although I'd greatly appreciate if you could continue to do it regardless."

Normally, he'd make a joke of it, say something witty and light-hearted instead of something he means. Normally, Tony would run well away of having _another_ person to worry about. Today though, and right now, he's not that man. He lifts their hands to his mouth and feathers his lips over Loki's knuckles.  "Gladly." He catches Loki's gaze and asks, "And I hope you might be willing to do the same."

Loki's eyes, green and tired and haunted, go soft at the request. "Of course." He disentangles their hands and cups Tony's jaw, tilting his face towards him. Rubbing his thumb over Tony's lip, he opens his mouth. "Tony," he starts warmly, but loud knocking coming from the door interrupts him, and he stands up.

Tony blinks a couple of times, still feeling the gentle drag of salty skin on his lip, and wonders if Loki had just been about to kiss him. He hears familiar voices, so he shakes his head to clear it, before rising to meet his friends too.

Clint is wearing a cast on his arm, and there's nothing anyone can do about his swollen face but wait. He's lost a tooth, Tony learns later, over drinks, that Bruce had to pull out as it had cracked in at least two places. His thumb is going to heal fine. Natasha is wearing a dress that, while not new, is at least whole and suits her coloring. She has evidently washed her hair before coming: it's silky smooth and gleaming. He grins. If there is one thing Natasha hates is the way her hair gets after a week or two on the owl hoot trail. Bruce is just the same as always, pleasant and shabby. He grins at Tony when he spots him; Tony arches an eyebrow at him and pointedly looks away. It doesn't put him off too much, because he approaches Tony and rubs his hair playfully.

A harassed concierge arrives a moment later, pushing a cart laden with food and two bottles of wine. He sniffs disapprovingly at the ragtag gang, but accepts a tip from Loki without argument. Loki guides them all to the sitting area —that's how you know your hotel is fancy: there is a sitting area _inside_ the room—, complete with coffee table. They arrange themselves around it, and Tony makes sure to sit next to Loki in case someone proposes they play faro or poker, to protect him from  getting it in the neck.

They eat and talk about themselves. It turns out that Loki can play the piano, and how is Tony only learning about that _now_? Loki smiles brilliantly then he learns that Tony is death on the violin. Bruce suggests they play a duet, and they agree, and everyone toasts to it.

Natasha has such a smug little smirk on her face that Tony has to kick her under the table.

(And if, later, Loki fleeces everyone at poker, including Natasha, well, it's a good job he's already part of their gang, isn't it?)

 

#  **THE END**


	7. Extras: Research, Cool Stuff, Character Bios

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Character bios, research, maps and horses!

# WORLDBUILDING

## MAPS 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1) Superawesome old timey map of railroad towns: <https://www.loc.gov/resource/g4051p.rr005940/>

2) Equally awesome but less detailed map of US trains circa 1880: <http://users.humboldt.edu/ogayle/Hist%20111%20Images/RR1880.jpg> )

 

## GUNS 

There were no such thing as safeties here! 

Lots of info about guns and rifles here: <http://www.militaryfactory.com/smallarms/guns-1800-1899.asp> 

Top 12 classic guns <http://gunsoftheoldwest.com/2014/10/top-12-western-classics/>

 

**Tony's gun:**

1873 Colt Peacemaker, which was the service revolver at the time. <http://www.militaryfactory.com/smallarms/detail.asp?smallarms_id=508>

 

**Loki's guns:**

1) Gold and mother-of-pearl. Piece of ornate shit imported, mainly to spite Odin's "america is great" mentality. 

 

2) Tony horrified upon seeing it ( _why are you carrying that toy around, are you actively trying to get us killed_ ) and makes Loki get a proper gun: a remington 1875 new army. ( _Not as good as my Peacemaker but it'll do i guess_ ). Info here <http://www.militaryfactory.com/smallarms/detail.asp?smallarms_id=511>

  

## Horses

No western would be complete without horses. Here are our babies!

 **Hurricane:**  Loki's horse. 9 years old. Palomino (golden coat; flaxen hair)

**Peach:**  Tony's horse. 14 years old. Tobiano (graying dark brown on white, mixed hair ) (the horse in the picture is young. Picture more white hairs in the brown)

 

## Other useful worldbuilding info

What the hell was up with money anyway (and prices of stuff): <http://www.theroadtodeadwood.com/forum/index.php?topic=3331.0;wap2>

Bandana, kerchief, neck rag, what it was used for: <http://cowboykisses.blogspot.com.ar/2015/03/handkerchief-wild-rag-bandana-just-what.html>

Old west town name generator: <http://www.goodnamegenerator.com/wild-west-town-names.php>

 

# SEX RELATED SLANG

 **That we didn't end up using** because no time for sex, have to ~~save the world~~ kill the villain!

<http://io9.gizmodo.com/three-timelines-of-slang-terms-for-having-sex-from-135-1608522982>

Vagina: <http://timeglider.com/timeline/07f47d6b843da763>

Penis: <http://timeglider.com/timeline/194b572e19fd461b>

Just general intercourse: <http://timeglider.com/timeline/962856e2d593150e>

More specific: <http://timeglider.com/timeline/962856e2d593150e>  (includes oral and anal sex)

Orgasm, fluids, etc: <http://timeglider.com/timeline/f2faf54e9a15080d>

 

# BACKSTORIES

## Loki

(22-25 somewhere there) Loki is dicking around after college, because he got in a fight with Odin and doesn’t want to go home yet. One day he finds out his family died in a fire so he hops on a train to SF,where all of his family’s holdings and his lawyer are, but some railroad worker (used to work for Odin, but was always a minion of Laufey) recognizes him in the middle of Utah and bullshits him to keep in one place so thanos can get to him. Loki is no idiot: he realizes something is afoot (particularly when they start shooting at him) and runs away. He can't use trains because obvious reasons so he's going by horse, always through tiny one-horse towns, aiming to get to SF to get his lawyer and try to fight Laufey's takeover.  He can't use his real name or make a fuss because they'll find him and kill him. He's SOL and has to make do with what little money he has. At least he has his horse.

## Tony

(33) Used to be part of the army. Here he met Rhodey and Steve. The government just sent them to kill indians (<http://nativeamericannetroots.net/diary/2088>) and it was horrible, but he muddled through. Then one day Rhodey decided enough was enough and refused to kill more indian children. Steve was ordered to kill him by their CO and, despite Tony's pleas not to, did. Tony resigned right after and decided he wanted nothing to do with the army, the government, or "civilized" society, and he became an outlaw. He forms a gang almost by accident and they collectively stick it to The Man, robbing bankrolls and stealing weapons shipments and shit.

_Later_

Tony and his gang pulled a job on one of Laufey's trains somewhere between utah and nevada on the line, but the job went south. The locomotive exploded or something and Tony has to lead the attention away from his gang. He goes off into the desert, and his horse gets shot while he’s trying to escape. Tony takes what he can carry, hides, and then when the coast is clear he makes the trek back to town, which Loki has almost reached by now. He's dirty, tired,and in need of a horse.

## Steve

Used to be in the army with Tony. After Rhodey mutinied, he was ordered to execute him. A few months later, still having nightmares over "having" to kill a friend (how can choosing NOT to kill a friend be mutiny? This is fucked up) he decides he's gonna change the system from the inside, he's gonna do something about criminal orders, but oops turns out the system is too big to change. He's honorably discharged due to his dangerous ideas, and he signs up as a cop in SF. At present, he's captain.

Tony hates him with the passion of a thousand fiery suns. Despite the fact that Steve would love to help Tony in any (legal) problem his ex-friend is in, Tony will have to be desperate to ask for it.

## Natasha

Is an actual mail-order bride. Her husband was a complete asshole that got drunk and beat her. One day he he decided it would be cool to have his buddies pay him to "use" her, and she snapped and killed everyone, packed what she could carry, and ran away without ever looking back. She got recruited into The Avengers by Clint, who saw her cheating at card games. She's Tony's best friend, and she's taught him a bunch of Russian.

## Hawkeye

Is an "indian". Can shoot arrows super good and is the gang's best tracker. He can also ride a horse without a saddle because he's awesome like that. Is a survivor of the place Rhodey died to save. They'd seen the army coming had had been trying to evacuate, and he was giving cover fire by hiding and shooting. Managed to escape in the confusion created by Rhodey. Tony thinks of him as part of Rhodey’s legacy, and would defend him by any means necessary.

"American troops under the leadership of Captain J.H. Walker attacked a friendly Shoshone camp, killing 18 Indians including six women and children."

Info here:

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoshone>

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Shoshone>

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snake_War>

<http://nativeamericannetroots.net/diary/2088>

 

## Bruce

Ex-army doctor who roams the land for people to cure/help. Meets Hawkeye in a cholera-ridden village and drafts him into helping. Later, Hawkeye drafts HIM into the Avengers, where he met Tony again after several years.

 


End file.
